The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1468

"Our next item is a notorious human fugitive. Dr. Gregario Manstel is a senior exobiologist with over sixty years of professional experience. When he was forty-three, he ran afoul with the laws of the Sentinel Kingdom when he illegally created an abomination that went out of his control and broke out of the constraints of his lab, killing two fellow senior exobiologists along with numerous junior exobiologists and interns."

The auctioneer calmly described the public history of Dr. Manstel, giving those who weren’t familiar yet with the exobiologist a good overview of his worth.

"Dr. Manstel has been drifting in the Nyxian Gap as an independent service provider. To adapt to his new life, he has acquired several new specialties. The most prominent of them is the ability to transplant alien or artificially-cultivated organs into human bodies. Owing to his orthodox education and formidable research gains during his legitimate career, his transplants attempts enjoy a 93 percent success rate, though this is partially due to his refusal to perform high-risk transplantation procedures."

The crowd rippled as they heard this. Ninety-three percent! While there were plenty of biotech scientists who could top this success rate, they were all eminent senior figures who did not make themselves available so easily!

Ves got the sense that it was mostly the gangs, pirates and dark mercenaries among the bidders who eyed the services of this exobiologist.

To most people, the best way to augment your capabilities was to alter their baseline human bodies! The rich and powerful did it all the time, so how could the pirates be left behind?

Of course, getting ahold of a senior exobiologist like Dr. Manstel who was capable of performing transplants safely was very rare in a place like the Nyxian Gap.

Plenty of fugitive biotech scientists who ran afoul with the law fled to lawless space, but most of them consisted of young idiots who screwed up on the job or got caught tampering with their work. Just like the mech design profession, the biotech professions were heavily skewed towards the upper end.

Someone as experienced and authoritative in his field as Dr. Manstel represented a genuine treasure, though getting him under someone’s heel was another thing entirely.

"...after botching a transplant operation on the son of a pirate leader, Dr. Manstel has been taken into captivity as punishment. We have inspected him thoroughly and he has not been subject to any abuse, brainwashing or other invasive procedures. With all of the augmentations he has applied to his own body, his natural lifespan is enough for him to last for at least fifty more years, barring any unusual occurrences."

Ves eyed Dr. Manstel speculatively as the auctioneer finally began the bidding round. A flurry of sums immediately emerged.

"5 million firthals. 10 million firthals. 13 million firthals. 13.3 million firthals. 14.6 million firthals. 17 million firthals. 17.5 million firthals..."

Ves decided to join in the fun as well and inputted a sum of 18 million firthals into his bidding tool.

"...18.5 million firthals. 18.6 million firthals..."

Sadly, his bid had already been supplanted by the time the auctioneer called up the next sum. _{ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com}

Finlay, who was sitting next to him, noticed his moves.

"Do you require the services of an exobiologist?"

"Perhaps. It will be a challenge to bring him to heel. Dr. Manstel does not appear very docile."

"There are many solutions to make a stubborn slave honest, from good old-fashioned torture to more sophisticated brainwashing methods. The Circle of Mota offers a variety of brainwashing options to turn a slave into a pliable servant."

"How many slave buyers make use of those services?"

"At least a third of them do so. The methods employed by the Circle are some of the best. However, a fair number of buyers already have their own brainwashing operations or work with trusted people who do the brainwashing on their behalf."

Ves did not possess any means to brainwash any slaves, but Finlay reminded him that he didn’t necessarily have to rely on himself. Did he possess any allies, friends or partners who could brainwash a slave in his stead?

One possible candidate emerged. If he could trust anyone to act in his interest and refrain from inserting any hidden traps and backdoors into the neural programming, then approaching Calabast was his best bet.

Even if she hadn’t set up a brainwashing operation for the moment, with her resourcefulness she could probably erect one within a year.

Ves inputted another bid into the bidding tool.

"20 million firthals! 20.1 million firthals..."

Damnit. The value of Dr. Manstel turned him into a very desirable good, especially to pirates who didn’t have easy access to advanced biomedical and biotech services in civilized space.

The value of Dr. Manstel did not only lay in his high proficiency in transplanting complex organs. He was also very skilled in identifying, caring, and identifying the properties of a variety of exobeasts.

That sounded useful to Ves as he contemplated setting up his own biotech company in order to manage his private exobeast reserve. Someone like Dr. Manstel, if brainwashed and set up with a completely new identity, could serve as an unquestionably loyal director and head researcher for the new company.

Nonetheless, the bids for Dr. Manstel quickly surpassed the ceiling set by Ves.

"30.6 million firthals by Number 324. 31 million firthals by Number 68. 32 million firthals by Number 324!..."

Only two bidders remained who still competed over Dr. Manstel. While the man was unquestionably valuable, many of the guests could easily obtain someone comparable with this much money on the table.

"You’ve stopped bidding." Finlay commented. "If you really need your own senior exobiologist, I could bid for you if you want."

"No thanks." Ves stoically replied. "I do not wish to owe you this much for a single slave."

Senior exobiologists of Dr. Manstel’s caliber were very hard to come by. Most already worked exclusively for other employers.

Even so, Ves preferred to reserve his limited capital for more worthwhile gains. The two spiritually-reactive items hadn’t even come up for auction yet. With the average price levels bandied about so far, Ves was afraid he would need every firthal he converted beforehand.