Adobe .pdf - Notes from An Alien

there and smiled at him.
"Get ready for a beating!"
As Zalen rushed at Verta, the villagers sprang into action to stop him.
There was a flash of light and he suddenly fell, flat on his face, not moving.
Verta looked at Morna and said: "You've ruined my experiment!"
"I saved your skin."
"Zalen didn't learn anything. Maybe if you'd let him bloody my nose then realize he still didn't
have my respect, he could have learned something. Now, he might have to learn it under more
desperate circumstances."
"I am programmed to protect you."
"Where is the part of your programming that let's me teach people a lesson."
Morna became busy with cross-correlations.
Mura offered: "Morna was right within her constraints. You were right within your constraints.
Zalen was right within his. We all have constraints, limits to action and understanding. Even in
the spiritual realm we need to learn how to overcome our constraints." She turned her attention
toward the adults: "Verta wanted to free Zalen from a block in his social development. Morna
wanted to fulfill her duty. Zalen wanted to prove his worth. All were constrained by their beliefs.
Yet, the greatest freedom from constraints is love. Morna doesn't fully understand love, Zalen is
blocking himself from it, and Verta is learning how to express it."
"Gee, mom, all I wanted to do was give the boy a lesson in living. You always have to make it a
spiritual journey."
Mura was used to Verta's ways. The adults were shocked at Verta's directness. The other youth
now had a new champion.
~~~
Mura and Verta continued their travels, talking to whoever would listen, filling their days with
teaching—Mura in her spiritually intellectual way and Verta in her practical moral way.
There were other incidents of near violence, some by people who felt no need of religion, mostly
due to extremely poor examples of it in their past, and some by various Independents,
Dissatisfieds, and members of the Independent Reformed Disciples of Faith. Some were blunted
by wise action on Mura's part, some by inventive displays of courage by Verta, and some by the
intervention of Morna or Rednaxela. To say they were making a name for themselves was the
height of understatement. They were becoming living Myths.
~~~
The Council had at first balked at the idea of accepting Mura's choice for her replacement. Mura
had given her appraisal of Alunur's qualification as far as his active intellect and wide-ranging
knowledge and had side-stepped his known sympathy for Independents with the always powerful
leverage of Anglana's desires. In the end, the Council had had to accept him because they had
accepted Mura's appointment along with the provision that she, alone, could choose her
replacement.
Alunur's time with the Council had progressed from heady excitement to nearly insufferable
tension. He had been careful, while in Council session, to push for a more lax approach to trade
while not sounding like an Independent. In his private hours he had been spending time with
select Independents.
What Anglana had predicted was coming true. The Independents had been emboldened. Farms
being destroyed had been replaced by destroying agricultural ships from the Created World. The
number of deaths were significantly less and the cost of using one plasma bolt on a ship was far
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