Majgen Ch. 009

"Also since you no longer show interest in getting your subconscious emanations under control. We have decided not to waste further resources on allowing you a personal voice activation code for security. In the future you can use the alarm buttons like regular students."

Majgen couldn't believe she heard him right. Shock was written all over her face and emanations. But she dared not protest, the man in front of her was a Femaron. Protests would bring her nothing but pain.

"We will at all times keep you away from youngsters, Student Majgen. We will not allow your emanations to raise conflicts in minds too young for such stress. That is why you will only be serving older rank 6 students."

'Rank 6,' Majgen thought with panic, beginning to understand the full implication of her new task,'Unsupervised seventeen year old rank 6 students.'

"But how do you expect me to be able to serve rank 6 students safely without my voice activation code?" Majgen's voice quivered, her near panicky levels of anxiety at that prospect removed her special sensitivity completely.

"In your time at the Mentariata we have gone to great lengths for your safety, Student Majgen, but there are limits to how far we are willing to go." Femaron Hollo's face showed no signs of sympathy, neither did his emanations. "We know now that your emanations can be reduced to a far more tolerable level, with the proper treatment. But when you refuse that therapy, you completely remove our incentive to offer special circumstances for your sake."

"But you know what they will do to me, please don't take away my voice activation code. They are only rank 6 students. They can't resist the effects." Majgen was crying now, but Femaron Hollo was unmoved. Rather than responding to her words he stepped forward and slapped her face with an open palm.

"Address me properly, Student."

Majgen moved a hand to her hurting cheek, only then realising that while airing her despair she had forgotten to address the Femaron according to the mentarion ways.

"My apologies, Femaron Hollo," she sobbed, automatically.

"It is not our fault that you refuse the only treatment, which can control the factors that causes so obstructive subconscious emanations from you, Student." Femaron Hollo wiped his hand on her bed, it was wet after slapping her tear-streaked face. "And if anything happens it will not be the fault of the rank 6 students either."

After that statement, Femaron Hollo stepped away from her bed.

"I feel sorry forthem," he admitted, "But in ten days your occasional self-destructive subconscious emanations should be completely out-washed by the other ones. So at least they are not at much risk of becoming involuntary murderers. It is however very likely that they will..." Hollo shrugged rather than finishing the sentence. He agreed with the course of action chosen, and had not objected to delivering the message. There were limits, however, to what he was willing to say to a fourteen year old girl.

Majgen knew exactly what it was the rank 6 students were likely to do. A sudden urge to vomit coursed through her.

"Pack your belongings. Stay in your room till someone comes to fetch you. You are excused from all planned classes until further notice." With those words Femaron Hollo turned and left the room.

In spite of knowing what was bound to happen, Majgen at first tried to stick to her resolution. She had begun her fourth day since last treatment the morning Femaron Hollo had woken her.

Already on the fifth day some of the Rank 1 students she passed began to show signs of being affected by her emanations. Even the ones who obviously resisted the effects stared at her and whispered to their mates. Majgen continued to stick to her resolution all the way to the eight day after her last treatment.

That day she affected a rank 1 student who hadn't seen her approaching. Unnoticed by either of them her emanations began affecting him, while she drank from a water fountain next to the vendor machine he was pulling a drink from. He accidentally spilled half his drink on himself and was so distracted by shaking the liquid of the cloak part of his uniform, that he didn't notice her effect on him until it was too late.

Majgen perceived the change in his emanations in time to start running before he could grab hold of her. Yet she would not have been able to escape the adult rank 1 student if other students had not noticed the danger too, and intercepted the hypnotised young man.

He screamed with rage as his pursuit was halted by first one and then several other rank 1 students. Majgen kept running till she could no longer hear him. And then she ran some more, to escape a panicked feeling that maybe he would wrestle loose and resume the pursuit.

That same evening she signed the application.

----=(Potential)=----

There were hundreds of thin but visible, nearly parallel lines in the blue picture. Majgen wondered how it had been made. She had never even seen a painting brush. Drawing with paint and brush was an unusual art-form at her time.

'Femaron Baglian's emanations feels weak right now,' Majgen noticed,'he has worked himself close to the limit of his empathic abilities. He still has enough left in him for the last patient of the day, though.'

Majgen was fully aware her mentor was proud of his ability to balance his work. He hardly ever had to send late-afternoon patients home without at least a quick scan. Many mentarions working as therapists informed late-afternoon patients, up front, that there was a risk they might not receive empathic attention as scheduled, Baglian never resorted to such warnings.

'Femaron Baglian's mental stamina fades during the day, even just from normal close-range mind-scans. I'm always scanning as many as I get a chance to, but I can't remember my own senses ever running dry.'

Majgen focused on Baglian's emanations again, to see if he was thirsty. She had made a habit of serving him before he noticed he wanted something himself.

'He has no physical needs right now.'

Her mind returned to the absence of bruises on her body. Contemplations on the significance or lack of same of that observation.

'I guess it means I am adapting.' Her eyes tracked the lines on the canvas, noting different effects of shadows on different shades of blue.'In his opinion I have begun to learn swiftly now. But how long will it take for me to learn to do what he does?' It felt strange for her to consider a possible future of being equal to a Femaron.

A moment she tried to push away thoughts of ever gaining more than graduate rank.

Around one year ago she had given up hopes of even graduating. While studying the blue picture and thinking of her un-bruised body, she realised that right now she not only had hope she would graduate. She nowbelieved she would, eventually, with Baglian's aid.

'If I can graduate to Etaron, then I can also achieve higher rank than that.'

She glanced at her teacher over her shoulder. He was reading, his emanations indicated he was most likely still on the same ludicrous article.

'I have more mentarion potential than Femaron Baglian.'

Majgen turned her eyes to the blue in front of her again and frowned.

'But how much more?'

Majgen realised she would like to gain as high a rank as possible. Her life would be safer that way. Even amongst graduated mentarions the higher ranked ones had a certain amount of freedom to punish lower ranked mentarions without trial.

'I don't even know how mentarion potential is determined. Most rank 10 students have some general idea how high their mentarion potential is, but I don't.'

Relief - of the type following the completion of an uncomfortable task - suddenly became dominant in Baglian's emanations. Majgen smiled to herself, at times she considered her teacher's self-discipline to be inconsequential. Slowly, she opened her perception of his emanations to the full extent again.

For a moment she let herself be carried away by his memories, as the beginning of an exercise Baglian had invented and ordered her to perform at least five times a day. She was the only one who was able to read memories from emanations, hence no standard exercises existed for practising this ability - until Baglian began inventing them.

Majgen counted each new memory as she was plunged into it, in a seemingly random pattern.

'One; I am a young man meeting a politician in person. Two; I am a middle-aged man awaiting an important long range conversation. Three; I am a child watching a news broadcast with my parents. No not parents, empathic foster-parents. Four; I am.. No. Ignore the fourth memory. Only three memories at a time.'

She focused on remembering the first memory to come to her and then tried to find it in Baglian's emanations again. It was difficult. There were so many random feelings, associations, and memories in there. When she just allowed his emanations to fill her uncontrolled it felt like disappearing into who he was and had been. When instead she tried to control what she sensed from him, without fully blocking his memories out, it felt very different. Unpleasant actually. It felt like she was drowning in a river of Baglian. Majgen had never seen a river and would not have recognised that analogy, but she was able to swim - swimming in pools were a favoured form of exercise - and she compared it to water too.

'I must learn to swim,' she thought,'but what is up and what is down?'

When she finally re-found the memory, she hung on to it. Following it as far as it was present in the emanation. That way she saw more of it than she had the first time. Afterwards she repeated the procedure with the two other memories.

After completing the exercise, Majgen exhaled deeply with relief.

'Politics, all three memories were related to politics in general, local politics more specifically.'

While she went through the exercise, her mentor had finished an article which had been more interesting to him, than the 'ludicrous' one. In his basic emanations Majgen could sense he was in a significantly better mood now. Also he was between articles, browsing headlines to choose more reading.

'Now would be a good time to ask a question,' Majgen decided, and turned to face in Baglian's direction before speaking.

"May I ask a question, Femaron Baglian?"

Baglian raised his eyes from his wallet, to look at his student.

"Go ahead." He often refrained from using standard mentarion forms of address when they were alone. Majgen had not needed to test to be certain he would not tolerate the same informality from her.

"What is my mentarion potential, Femaron?" she asked, keeping her senses open to perceive more than his words. Often when she asked him a question, she knew the reply sooner than he spoke.

An image appeared very sharply in Baglian's emanations, the moment she asked. It was the face of a timeless looking woman, with sparkling naturally green eyes and dark brown hair. There was something beautifully enigmatic and serious about her expression.

The face had been on a poster which Baglian had received for his ninth birthday. At the age of ten Baglian was enrolled in the Cogniata, one of the mentarion schools, and had taken the poster with him to hang in his shared room. It had reminded him of his foster-parents, as well as the reason he no longer lived with them.

The poster had had a simple text on it: Mentarion adhere to your duty.

To Majgen there was something familiar about the face on the poster, but she couldn't quite place it.

"Your potential has not been estimated precisely, Student Majgen," Baglian stated.

'That statement is barely true in his own opinion.' Majgen analysed the discrepancies in her mentors emanations.'He has suspicions about my potential. No. He is almost sure about my potential, but he wants to keep the knowledge from me. Why would he want to do that?'

Baglian leaned back and allowed himself to sense his student's emotions. He would have liked to look directly into her mind, but he needed to save his strength for his last patient. By now, he was sufficiently familiar with his student to recognise the emotional pattern she displayed when searching for specific information in his emanations.

'I didn't expect her to ask this question for at least another few weeks. She almost always progress faster than I expect,' he thought to himself.

Majgen didn't catch that particular line of thought from him, she was trying to figure out what Baglian believed her mentarion potential to be. Words as gradual as rank designations did not translate into emotions easily. Concepts such as 'higher potential', 'same potential' and 'less potential' than someone she could grasp from him. But at first that did not give her a good indication in itself; his emanations only gave her two comparisons. The first one she already knew:

'Higher potential than me.' From Baglian's point of view.

The second was:

'Higher potential than the woman depicted on the poster.'

As long as Majgen could not figure out who the woman on the poster was, she couldn't use that comparison for anything. The intensity and amounts of memories in Baglian's emanations had increased since she asked her question. That did not help her pinpoint the full answer.

Suddenly she made a connection.

'That poster!' She had seen similar posters on the Mentariata.'Same poster different face. No, same face just older. Much older. Grey-white hair, wrinkles, but same eyes.' And Majgen knew exactly who the woman on the posters she had seen at the Mentariata was. Majgen paled. The woman on the posters was Niaron Larks.

"You think I have Niaron-potential, Femaron Baglian." The way she said it, it sounded more like an accusation than a realisation.

'Higher,' Majgen perceived,'he thinks my potential is higher.'

"There is no higher rank than Niaron, Femaron," Majgen stated, as if Baglian had spoken his opinion.

Baglian moved forward in his chair, not sure what he was going to say to his student.

'There could be,' he thought,'it would be called Tiaron. No one has ever been given that rank, but that is what it would be called.'

Majgen only caught the meaning of the first sentence, the rest did not translate emotionally. Yet the first sentence alone was enough to make her head spin.

"You are unique, tenth ranked Student Majgen Rahan," Baglian said, "Don't let it get to your head. You have a very far way to go. And not all mentarions are able to reach the rank of their potential."

Baglian picked up his wallet again, to return focus to his articles.

'Dread to think the havoc she'd spread if she gained Tiaron, or even Niaron, rank without gaining more political understanding first,' he thought to himself.

Baglian didn't think Majgen would catch that thought through his emanations, he considered it to be too logical for such translation. But she did, partially.

'He feels it would be disastrous for society if I had the rank of my potential now. That it will be a disaster if I gain Niaron rank, before I have learned... Learned what?'

She tried to find out what it was she needed to learn, but instead she came across another association in Baglian's emanations.

'He is convinced that... and also sure that any - higher ranked than him - mentarions who are - sufficiently informed - are also convinced that... I am... valuable...'

Majgen tried to understand the associations. She was reminded of the only other adult tenth ranked student at the Mentariata. A man, who was like a young child emotionally, and little more than a baby intellectually. Most mentarions who were mentally under-developed like him were given back to the Empaticon. The weaker empaths often found good use for them.

'They kept him at the Mentariata because he was so strong. Ottearon potential some said. He was too valuable. It's similar, I'm too valuable too. Too valuable to waste. But if I'm also dangerous?' Majgen's thoughts were churning, her instinct, the intelligent one told her she was close to understanding something.

Baglian had found a new article to read. He was halfway through it before Majgen found the right question:

"What will happen if I never adopt the political views of the Mentaricon, Femaron Baglian?"

Her mentor had never gone through that exact line of thought. Now that she asked, however, he couldn't help but apply his superior political understanding to the possibility.

'In the mentarion society rank and political power goes hand in hand. A Niaron with her naive and childish approach to the universe would be an immense liability to the mentarion ways. She wouldn't be allowed to reach Niaron rank. Nor Ottearon or Syvaron.'

Once Baglian's mind had gone down that track it went on.

'But how would a mentarion who had the discipline, skill and power to reach Syvaron rank be kept at Seksaron rank? Empaths would notice, in particular other mentarions would notice if a Seksaron deserving of Syvaron rank was kept back. That would also happen if she was held at lower ranks. People would talk, rumours of corruption and favouritism would spread.'

Majgen could only follow parts of Baglian's logic through his emanations. But she filled in most of the blanks that didn't translate successfully herself.

'At this time she is a lowly student, easy to hide. She has no means to make the slightest spectacle of herself. When she becomes an Etaron, and interacts more equally with other graduated mentarions knowledge of her abilities will spread like an air-born virus. The girl is not stupid. And she has a good potential for developing self-discipline to the extent needed to rise high in rank. She has the makings to learn what it takes to pass the graduate rank up tests. To reach her maximum potential one day. So in reality the road to political instability will begin as soon as she graduates.' Baglian frowned at that realisation.

'Am I the first to consider this?' He looked at his student, trying to see what other mentarions would.

'An intelligent adult wearing a children's uniform. She lived in constant anxiety in the Mentariata. The fear and her abuse of trivial thinking numbed her wits. But was the effect really strong enough to make her less perceptive than a ten year old?' He did not need to spare many seconds on that thought, not with his knowledge of how well Majgen functioned even while having a clear cut panic attack.

'No. She should have advanced from rank 10 long ago. Maybe not as fast as average mentarion students. But she should have advanced. Why is she still rank 10?' If Baglian hadn't grown accustomed to ignoring the fact that Majgen could follow almost everything he thought of, then maybe he would have thought of leaving her presence before completing his contemplations. But then again, neither of them had realised that Majgen followed contemplations with more clarity while they were being made, than in retrospect.

Baglian started remembering what he had seen in her papers regarding her grades. When he had studied her papers, he had thought lowly of her, because of her daydream of expulsion. He had subconsciously considered the tenth student rank appropriate for such a mentarion, hence he had not looked for answers as to why she was still rank 10.

For a moment he completely forgot that Majgen had been the one who asked the question, which had started this train of thought. He started clicking away at his wallet, hiding the list of articles to open Majgen's papers instead. This time he didn't just look at the humiliatingly low grades, he looked at which courses she had been offered. Both as seminars and with private tutors.