Jayne Chedowski Best

Jayne Best (born Jayne Chedowski, 242 IE) was the High Normaj of the Marilynists Temple on Earth as of 429 IE. She became part of Douglas Best‘s investigation into JunoCorp. After the death of Carolyn Best, she became Douglas’s second wife.

She joined the Marilynists as a teenager during a period of severe unrest on Jefivah, allowing her cleric to take her as a lover. She volunteered to undergo experimental and painful amortality therapy on Earth when she was seventeen. As such, she had not aged for a hundred and seventy years when she met Carolyn and Douglas Best in 429 IE.

As High Normaj, she arranged security at the behest of the Jefivan government for Best and Carolyn Best. As the Temple considered Best their “Prophet,” a title given in gratitude for procuring the colony of Marilyn, she offered to help him maintain cover by initiating him into the faith, with Carolyn Best’s blessing. The rite included making love to a high cleric to “commune with the Blessed Mother.” The couple declined, and Jayne did not take offense. She gave the impression of a more pragmatic approach to her faith than the Grand Dimaj Best had dealt with, openly suggesting the sexual rites of the Temple were little more than perks enjoyed by the clerics at the expense of newer converts.

After Douglas Best met with Tol Germanicus, she revealed her age to him and Carolyn, disrobing to show them her unaged body. She also revealed that Juno had begun on Thule, where most of the population was amortal. She agreed to help the Bests with their investigation into Juno and its founder, Gene Klament.

At Carolyn’s suggestion, Jayne and Douglas slept in the same bed to give the impression that the High Normaj had “inducted” the “Prophet” into the faith. This also allowed them to travel to Richard Byrd University to discreetly trace the whereabouts of Gene Klament. Since Gohem was the last documented location of Klament, they decided to travel to the Orag homeworld. Jayne scheduled Best to go with her to Gohem while Carolyn would travel to Bromdar to re-examine Hatch.

On Gohem, Best and Jayne met with the Khreg and consulted with Nintenneg about Gene Klament. Nintenneg revealed that Klament arrived after suffering organ failure from amortality therapy due to a missing protein in Sapiens. They discovered that Klament bore a striking resemblance to Marcus Leitman, After their visit to the Paendargoem, they were attacked. One of their bodyguards suffered multiple stab wounds.

The bodyguard Erik would stay behind on Gohem for amortality therapy, which could restore him from near-death. Jayne took a separate room that night to avoid the temptation to seduce Best, telling him the stress made that all-too-likely, that she cared too deeply for him and Carolyn to do that to them.

They traveled back to the Compact together on a commercial liner to Tian, then took the Challenger to Bromdar to pick up Carolyn. Thanks to an Orag medication, both Best and Jayne could stand and watch the wormhole with Captain Okada. However, as their shuttle made its approach to Krupp, on Bromdar, the city suffered the planet’s second nuclear attack, killing Carolyn. The shuttle crashed while trying to avoid the fireball. Best was severely injured.

When amortality therapy proved the only viable means to save Best, they proceeded to move him to Thule. However, he did not have enough Orag DNA to make it work. Jayne volunteered her own bone marrow to give Best the needed genetic material to start the process at great risk and pain to herself.

Jayne offered not only to become Best’s partner, but she agreed to marry him, after a suitable period following Carolyn’s death. They would do so under Thulian aliases to bypass Marilynist restrictions on clerics marrying. As best became an ambassador to the Laputan Guardianship, she took on the role of chief of staff. When Best assumed an informal ambassadorship to Hanar, she traveled with him to meet with Lattus Tishla. While there, she and her husband were approached by Malcolm Russell. Russell revealed that Tol Germanicus was not a human but an AI entity using a holographic avatar. He further accused Germanicus of being Steven Turing. This shook the Bests, introducing doubt to their working relationship with the Darasius executive. However, Tishla convinced them of his sincerity.

Best followed her husband to Amargosa, where he became provisional governor. By this time, she was noticably pregnant with their first child, who would be born amortal. She took charge of the Thulian Clinic on Amargosa. She made the offer to each of the Children of Amargosa, asking Davra Andraste to take advantage of her treatment to convince the others to join the project.

Jayne gave birth to a daughter they named Carolyn in honor of Douglas’s late first wife. Two years later, they conceived and gave birth to Naomi. However, when Best survived an assassination attempt and Jayne disappeared, trusted allies left the girls in safe places. Best requested Suicide and JT Austin to investigate Jayne’s likely abduction.

After sending her daughters to safety, Jayne fled to Marilyn seeking help from Grand Dimaj Lawrence McLaren, governor of the Jefivan colony. McLaren sent her off-world to Walton, ostensibly to keep her moving.

Surgeons from Juno were harvesting her bone marrow when she was finally rescued. Jayne was able to tell Suicide and Partlow that her captor, Jez Salamacis was using cloning and resurrection technology to escape death. They destroyed the clone and took her away from the lab. In her weakened state, she needed to be supported. Fortunately, before an encounter with security could escalate, Mitsuko Yamato and JT Austin also escaped captivity and neutralized their attackers. Despite a serious gunshot wound, Austin supported her on the way out of the building.

Jayne’s condition deteriorated as they escaped the Koch Medical Center. Once extracted by the Goldeneye, Suicide took her away from Walton to a planet she considered off Juno’s radar. By the time the Goldeneye arrived at Farigha, she had lost consciousness. On Farigha, Dr. Baker placed her into a medical coma as only on Thule could she get proper treatment.

 

Appearances: The Amortals, Storming Amargosa, Suicide Run