The Varmint Hunter

By John William Meredith

A young boy is orphaned by an alien being and grows up to become the nemesis of that alien's species.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781105945687

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The Varmint Hunter

THE VARMINT HUNTER

BY: JOHN WILLIAM MEREDITH

Copyright 2012: John William Meredith

ISBN 978-1-105-94568-7

revised 08 May 2018

FOREWORD

Every event in this book is pure fiction, with no link to reality. It is a sequel to Multiverse Explorer (published originally by Rose Dog Books) and The Explorer's Daughter. Both of those books are now distributed by lulu.com. Everything the reader needs to know, from those books, is included in this one.

This is a work of fiction and therefore precise measurements are not necessary.

Most of the characters in this book are members of an artificial race of humans called Deranians with a central government on a world called Council Home.

Their weeks are eight days long with six work days and two days off at the end. The first day of each week is also the first work day. For simplicity, the author refers to the days by their Terran names, beginning with Monday because it is also the first day of the Terran work week. The two weekend days are Sunday and Second Sunday.

The length of each world's day is different. For a semblance of normality, each year is divided into months consisting of four weeks, except for the last month which varies according to the portion of four weeks left from the previous full months.

Council Home years and days are longer than Terran days and years. For official use, a universal standard was needed for describing people's age. The Council Home year, which is seventeen days longer than a Terran year, was adopted for that purpose and labeled a Deranian year.

Instead of hours, minutes and seconds, their days are divided into thirty thousand equal increments, called tuns. Their word for thousand is moh. The same system is used on almost all Deranian worlds. The length of a day on each world is different, but 30 moh tun will always be midnight and 15 moh (tun) will always be noon.

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, except for a few on Valhalla. 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. Some hosts had lived for over two thousand years.

Dregs are intelligent beings composed of pure energy, like Builders, but they are 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 for The Builder unless it has a new host ready to accept it. 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. Toad people (the most commonly used hosts for Dregs, during the original Dreg War) die within hours after the Dreg leaves 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.

Council Home is the location of The Multi-Verse Council and the center of government for the Council Member Worlds. The Multi-Verse 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 are 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, actively engaged in the war (called The Dreg War Alliance), ordered all of The Builders to evacuate the other worlds and cut them off from the gate network in order to prevent the Dregs from finding them. The human populations of the cutoff worlds were left in place, but Heart World was totally evacuated because it was sparsely populated and useless for anything except gate travel.

When Heart World was evacuated, 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 the discovery of other gates that were left ON, but closed. Opening those gates led to creation of The Multi-Verse Council and Heart World was renamed Council Home because the new residents had never heard the old name for it.

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. They have no hair, except for the tops of their heads. They are an artificially created race, developed from Terran humans by the Ancient Builders, who needed better biological hosts for themselves in a symbiotic relationship. While they're always peaceful when left alone, history shows that they're 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 can't bond with more than one other person, and the bonding is beyond any control of either party. Bonding of a couple is permanent, except for a few rare cases following the death of one party, 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: A BELLA NOOR

Zeb Dintere was born in Kraal, which is the capitol of the world Sensemia. Sensemia had been cut off from the other Deranian worlds until a little more than a year before Zeb was born. During the time in isolation, Sensemia's population had dropped until only a few thousand citizens were left and all of them were living in the single city. The remainder of the world had been abandoned.

He was a little over three years old when the event occurred that changed his life forever. He was awakened from his usual afternoon nap by the sound of screams and loud crashes from a battle underway in his home, along with empathic emanations of fear and rage coming from his parents. He was climbing out of his bed when a strange man burst into his room, grabbed Zeb, tucked him under his left arm and hurried toward the exit with a huge knife in his right hand. As they passed through the family's common room, Zeb saw the bodies of his parents lying on the floor and covered with blood from vicious cuts and stab wounds.

Zeb and all of his neighbors were Deranians who are highly sensitive to each others emotions.

The stranger screamed in rage when he was met in the hallway, outside the Dintere apartment, by a mob of neighbors armed with a large variety of improvised weapons. Overwhelmed by his own fear and the fear being radiated by his neighbors, Zeb bit the stranger's hand as hard as he could. In reflex, the man threw Zeb down on the floor and started to stomp on him. His attempt to stomp Zeb was thwarted by a broom, thrown like a spear by one of the neighbors. The broom knocked the man back through the apartment door. With the mob advancing rapidly, the stranger climbed out of an open window in the apartment and used a rope to swing down to the vacant apartment below the Dintere apartment, which is apparently how he got in, in spite of the fact that the main entrance had not been