The Explorer's Daughter

By John William Meredith

Girl born on Terra and raised on another world in a different universe becomes an expert in communication with new people and other intelligent creatures from different worlds. In the process, she must deal with deadly enemies who are desperate to stop her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781105440823

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The Explorer's Daughter

The Explorer's Daughter

By: John William Meredith

Copyright 2012 LULU Press

ISBN: 978-1-105-44082-3

Revised

12 April 2018

FOREWORD

A few characters and places in this book are very loosely based on real people and places. The names of some real people are used as a way of honoring their memory and the names of some real places are used to make it easier for readers to remember them.

Every event in this book is pure fiction, with no link to reality. It is a sequel to Multiverse Explorer, which was published originally by Rose Dog Books and then switched to LULU Press. The author strongly recommends reading the other book first, but both are complete in themselves. Most of chapter one is intended for readers who have not read Multiverse Explorer, but some review will probably help everyone who reads this book.

Two additional books (The Varmint Hunter and The Dregnaught) follow this one with some of the same characters and circumstances, but different stories and lead characters. The Dregnaught ties up a lot of loose ends from the first three. No additional volumes will follow The Dregnaught unless a different author chooses to pick up from there.

Three Major Races of Humans outside Terra.

DERANIANS – Physically the same as Terran Europeans (in appearance) with wide variations in height, hair color, complexion and facial features, but invariably slender due to the low ratio of fat cells in their bodies and their high metabolism. They are generally agreed to be an artificially created race. They were developed from Terran Caucasian humans by an ancient race of beings (called Builders) who consist of pure energy and needed better biological hosts for themselves in a symbiotic relationship. While they are always peaceful, when left alone, history shows that Deranians are capable of extreme violence, when threatened. The major difference between Deranians and other human races (other than The Builder connection) is their psychic ability. They can easily sense the emotions of other Deranians and, to a limited extent, they can sense the emotions of any intelligent being (including some that are not remotely human). While their psychic ability (called empathy) is of no concern to other races, it is vital to the survival of Deranians. Deranians can only breed when a couple establishes a psychic connection (called bonding). They cannot bond with more than one other person, and the bonding is beyond any control of either party. Bonding of a couple is permanent and there is no record of anyone ever trying to break it.

GIBS – Originally evolved from Terran (Polynesian and Caucasian) human stock on the world Gibaun, but later migrated to many other worlds. Distinguished by wavy black hair and dark complexions varying from heavy tan on Gibaun to ebony on Aluvia.

KELLES – Evolved from several races from the Asian region of Terra and can travel anywhere on Terra without drawing attention.

CHAPTER 1: THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

Charity Merritt was the daughter of Ron and Lacie Merritt, the first Terran Builder hosts. Ron was the most famous Explorer in the Multiverse, due to his relationship with his Builder (BB). Together, Ron and BB restored contact with several worlds which had been isolated because of The Dreg War. Contact between many other worlds was restored only because Ron taught other people how to find them. Lacie was already famous for her work with psychiatric patients, including children suffering from the distress caused by separating empathic children from their parents, and for her work, as an instructor, teaching Terran cuisine, at a culinary school, before she became a Builder host.

Builders are intelligent beings composed of pure energy. Many of the oldest Builders had supposedly evolved enough to live without a biological host, but no one knew what happened to them after that. Theoretically they can live forever by moving to new hosts when necessary, but they can keep their hosts healthy and physically young for many years longer than a normal human lifetime. Several hosts had lived for over two thousand years. Ron was BB's first host, but Faith (Lacie's Builder) had lived in a previous host for over a thousand years. In spite of their potential immortality, Builders die when their hosts die unexpectedly in war or in accidents.

Dregs are intelligent beings composed of pure energy, like Builders, but they're the opposite of Builders in character. Builders strive to live in harmony with humans and as partners with their hosts for the benefit of both races. Builders do not dominate their hosts. An unwilling host can reject a Builder and force it to leave, which is fatal to the Builder if it does not have a new host available. Dregs are parasites and as evil as the Builders are good. They totally dominate their hosts and use their host's body, purely for their own benefit. A Toad (the preferred host for Dregs during the Dreg War) dies within hours after the Dreg leaves it for a new host. A (non-Deranian) human can be adapted by Dregs for use as their host. If the Dreg is driven out within a few weeks, the human host can sometimes survive. A Dreg can invade a Deranian and control its body for a short time, but then, both Dreg and Deranian will die.

When Charity was four years old, her father was instrumental in the final battle that ended The Dreg War, by thwarting a Dreg attempt to conquer Council Home. Council Home is the location of The Multiverse Council and the center of government for the Council Member Worlds. The council's leaders doubted that all of the Dregs would be destroyed for many more years, but the stragglers were being systematically hunted down and exterminated. Genocide is normally a terrible crime, but in this case, no one objected, except the Dregs.

The Multiverse Council's name comes from the fact that the member worlds are scattered over several different universes. Travel between those worlds is possible because of a system of travel gates. The gates were developed, thousands of years ago, by the Ancient Builders. The travel gates are artificially created openings in the fabric of space that allow instantaneous travel from one world to another. They're created in two sizes. One for pedestrians and a larger size for cargo. The gates can only be created on three known worlds (including Council Home). The other two are Navarre and Divine. Divine was captured by the Dregs at the beginning of The Dreg War. A small number of worlds (called The Dreg War Alliance), actively engaged in the war, ordered all of the Builders to evacuate the worlds that later became the Multiverse Council, in order to prevent the Dregs from finding those worlds. The human populations of The Cutoff Worlds were left in place, except for Council Home, which The Alliance called Heart World.

Heart World was totally evacuated, and all of the gates were supposed to be turned Off. A few were inadvertently left closed, but still ON. A gate left ON, still exists whether it is open or closed. Many years later, someone found a way to detect a gate that was left ON and open it from the other side. That open gate led to Council Home, and to the discovery of other gates that were left ON, but closed. Opening those gates led to creation of The Multiverse Council.

At that time, the surviving humans believed that Builders no longer existed, but at least two were left behind in special incubators because they were too young to move. Charity's father found the first one (accidentally), and together they found the second one and helped it move into Charity's mother, after it had moved to a human host for many years and returned to the incubator. The existence of those two Builders was kept secret until the other Builders came out of isolation at the end of The Dreg War.

At the beginning of the war, the Dregs depended on a non-human race of people, called Toads, for their hosts. It was the Toads who made it possible to recapture Divine from the Dregs. Isolation of what The Alliance called The Cutoff Worlds, delayed the Dregs, but it didn't stop them from eventually finding out about Council Home and trying to invade it.

No one knew how, but the Dregs had established gates from Divine to Terra. The location of Council Home was kept secret by The Alliance and the only way the Dregs could reach Council Home was by traveling to Terra and using Council Home's own gates against them.

In order to invade Council Home, the Dregs relocated many of their warriors to Terra, which was a big help to The Alliance in their recapture of Divine.

The younger Builders, currently living with human hosts, are highly intelligent and they have special abilities that humans cannot duplicate, but they're not nearly as powerful as their elder ancestors.

Charity was unique because she was still in her mother's womb when her mother served as birth host for an infant Builder, formed by her parents' Builders. That experience created a special bond between Charity and the infant (Hope) that continued after Hope was moved to an incubator, called The Teacher.

The first indication of something extraordinary about her, came when she was attending a special dinner in celebration of the return of other Builders to Council Home. It was the other Builders who informed her parents that she was the first human who could communicate directly, with any Builder, without having to relay the conversation through The Builder's host. Her ability was limited because she had to be touching The Builder's host during the conversation, but it was more than anyone else could do.

Charity was a precocious child with a thirst for knowledge that produced a never ending series of questions about anything and everything in her life. Her desire to learn new things often reminded her father of his Builder when they first met. With the help of their Builders, her parents were able to answer almost all of her questions, but as often as not, the answers only produced more questions. She would accept I don't know for an answer from anyone except her parents. By the time she was three years old, everyone had learned to tell her that, unless they were absolutely sure about their answers. She took delight in proving someone wrong, but a deliberate lie often led to revenge in very imaginative ways.

Her parents and their friends got a little relief from the questions when she taught herself to read, at the age of five.

Charity exhibited a sort of dual personality because she would carry on complicated discussions and ask difficult questions when around adults, but with kids near her own age, she would run and play, just like the other kids. Her mother (Lacie) often worked with psychiatrists treating mental health patients. Lacie was concerned enough, about the radical changes in Charity's behavior, for her to ask some of the mental health professionals about it. All of them told her the same thing, once all of the extra medical jargon was condensed down to basics. The simple question usually got a very long winded reply that could have been condensed down to three short words. She is fine. Both of her parents' Builders agreed that there was nothing to worry about unless Charity started asking her young playmates difficult questions and expecting good answers.

Charity had a brother and a sister, (Harry and Lena), who lived on Terra and had children and grand-children of their own. She loved them both, and she enjoyed visiting with them and their children, but for many years, she had trouble understanding their relationship. She wanted to call them Aunt and Uncle instead of using their given names because of the vast difference in their ages. If anyone asked about her sister, without specifying Lena, Charity would respond with comments about Hope in her incubator. Hope's incubator was part of an ancient device used to teach languages to humans as well as educating and nurturing young Builders. To everyone else, the device was called The Teacher or The Council Home Teacher, after other devices like it were found on other worlds. To Charity it was always Hope's Machine.

Charity's parents and her father's Builder (BB) found her Mother's Builder (Faith) trapped in an almost identical incubator on the world Caldera and rescued her from it. After Faith and BB produced Hope and moved her into The Council Home Teacher, other Builders from another world (Navarre) left a male infant Builder in The Calderan Teacher. Charity's parents and their Builders named the male infant Six and arranged for an altar made of leaded crystal to be set up against The Calderan Teacher in order for them to communicate with Six and still keep his presence a secret until his parents identified themselves to the public.

Whenever possible, Charity and her parents visited Hope and Six at least once per week. With Six on another world, and Hope only a few city blocks away, Hope got a lot more of their time than Six did. Other people made up the difference because it was simple for Six's parents to visit him, and the people of Caldera (non-Deranians called Gibs) had unofficially adopted him after they finally learned the truth about his presence in their teacher.

Bridget Laurel was Lacie's personal body guard. When it became necessary to leave Charity with a babysitter, Bridget worried more than Lacie and Ron. The only person Bridget was comfortable leaving Charity with, was Tiana Samone. Tiana preferred to be called Charity's godmother instead of her babysitter. Ruhr (Tiana's brother) was second choice because he considered Charity to be his little sister, but he was not nearly as capable of defending the baby as Tiana was. When anyone except Tiana was Charity's babysitter, Bridget insisted on at least two guards being nearby, in addition to the normal four on the penthouse roof and four more in the penthouse basement, which is what most people continued to call the sixteenth floor of the apartment building. Technically, the Merritts and the Chords were Bridget's bosses, but no one was willing to argue with Bridget about security for Lacie and Charity.

Charity's parents owned several private schools and colleges (spread over many worlds), but Council Home schools and daycare facilities were as good as any, anywhere. They could easily afford private tutors for her, but that would have deprived her of the opportunity to interact with other children. Charity was placed in the standard daycare facility, at Council Headquarters, when her parents were both too busy to keep her at home or when they thought she needed the company of other children (which was often). A trip to daycare almost always led to a visit with Hope because her incubator was in the same location as the daycare facility.

On Charity's fifth birthday, her parents hosted a party for her, at the daycare center. After the party, they went to visit Hope and found a special gift waiting for Charity from Six's parents and their leader on Navarre. Six's parents (Flora and Shoal) were very old Builders, hosted by two prominent military officers on Navarre. Loran (their leader) was an extremely old Builder, hosted by the head of Navarre's government (Tsavo Turin).

Toby (the Council Home Teacher's chief operator) was waiting eagerly when Charity arrived. She ran to him with her arms reaching for a hug and a squeal of delight as if it had been more than a day since she saw him last. Toby was Lacie's first and dearest friend on Council Home. Charity's parents would often leave her with him, for hours at a time, because they trusted him, and the location was guarded extensively by Council Security. She would spend most of the time sitting on the floor, behind The Teacher, with her back against it, which is how she visited with Hope. She did not interfere with Toby's work, and most of his customers never knew she was there.

Normally, the lobby would be filled with people waiting for their turn with The Teacher, and the back room, where The Teacher was located, would have only one or two people present. On this day, both rooms were filled with people, and most of them were other council employees instead of customers. Toby led Charity to her usual spot, behind The Teacher, where they found Elder Turin (leader of Navarre's government) sitting in a glass chair.

Charity ran to Elder Turin with another squeal of delight and climbed into his lap as Toby explained to Ron and Lacie It's a special chair, made of leaded crystal, for Charity to use instead of sitting on the floor to visit Hope. Elder Turin and three workmen brought it in this morning. It was in three pieces, at first, with two sides and the seat. When Elder Turin's Builder got through with it, it was all fused together and to my Teacher. Now the chair and teacher shell are all one piece. The workmen say he got the idea from you because of the altar on Caldera. Chairs like it will soon be standard for all Builder incubators as well as teachers. The only exception will be the altar on Caldera which has already been fused into their Teacher by Six's parents (with permission from Caldera's government).

Toby went back to work while Ron and Lacie visited some of their friends who had been waiting to see Charity in her new chair for the first time. When the last of the spectators had also gone back to work, they did not have to wait much longer before Charity kissed Elder Turin on the cheek, climbed down and announced We're hungry! while holding her arms out, signaling for her father to pick her up.

Ron picked her up and said Okay birthday girl! What would you like to eat? and she replied Today's special at Hylasia is Karlo's Minox sausage, with toast and egg gravy made from Mama's recipe.

Ron asked Isn't that the same thing you had for breakfast? and she replied Yes, but that was a very long time ago. Elder Turin has never eaten Mama's egg gravy before, and he is hungry too.

Lacie said "She can't be hungry because she ate two pieces of birthday cake and a big bowl of ice cream at the party a little while ago. We should go anyway because I'll bet Elder Turin is starving. Faith