Ripped Apart: Quantum Twins – Adventures On Two Worlds (28 page)

Aware that she was still in shock and that if it was allowed to surface she would be enwrapped in total paralysis, her mind created a cocoon of safety by concentrating only on essentials. Striving to mange with a lifestyle vastly different from that on Vertazia, learning their language and having to cope with being treated as a Goddess was all she could cope with.

Her times with the young children were a blessing. Even if they called her ‘Goddess’ or ‘Daughter’, those were just names they used whilst they treated her as big sister. That gave her the strength to reach out to the young women and men, asking them through her energies and actions rather than words to accept her as what they called a teenager, and a young one at that.

She did not have the energy to cope with thoughts of family, friends or returning home and also maintain the protection of her cocoon. Her internal focus was on soaking up the energy of the land so that Xameb could help her reconnect with Qwelby. She felt like a butterfly trapped in a chrysalis. Reconnect with her twin and she could emerge into the sunlight, whole again and be ready for new awareness, thoughts and actions.

Enwrapped in her own thoughts she slipped into her memory and returned to the top of the hill from where in all directions the land looked exactly the same as far as she could see. The realisation that Kalahari was their name for Haven, meaning she was in the same sun system as Vertazia, was a reassurance she clung to as surely as she had clung to Xashee’s hand.

‘
The life forms on Haven in the fifth dimension are very different from what I am experiencing. Life here is slow and solid and similar in those respects to what I’ve seen of Earth at the Elmits. My mental powers do not work like they do at home. That confirms I am in the third dimension.’ Satisfied with her reasoning she continued muttering to herself.

‘Xashee has told me of other tribes of San who are red like me. Of course, those names Tsetsana asked me must be for Red San tribes. Her memory replayed the two words “Hiechware” and “Hoachana.” The peace and ease I have with the Meera. Their ability to understand where I come from and how I got here. Perhaps the San are like the Tazii, pure Auriganii descendants? To be anchored in the third dimension their DNA must have degraded to only two segments, like the Azurii.

‘That explains so much. Especially the loss of memory of their true origins. Yet those survive in their simple lifestyle that honours all life and takes from nature only the minimum needed. So unlike the violence amongst the Azurii.

‘Conclusion. Kalahari is to Haven what Azura is to Vertazia. Our forebears travelled countless light years across the galaxy. If Kaigii is on Azura. I must be able to take the short step to my next door neighbour!’

It was to be a long time before memory of the inexplicable images she had seen from the mountain top was to return.

Freed from her duties, Xaala was relaxing in her room. She had slipped out of her customary thigh length, cream tunic and wrapped around herself an equally short robe in soft shades of the ten colours of the rainbow. She had scarcely believed the multi-level message she had heard a little earlier. She had been lost in relaxing Ceegren’s tensions, her hands moving with accustomed skill through his energy field a little above the soft robe he wore for treatment.

‘I need your help,’ he had said, at the same time transmitting images on more than one level.

Involuntarily, her hands had stopped moving as she absorbed it all. His request was genuine. The fast energy spectrum of her second Era was needed. Was essential. To him and thus crucial to the future of Vertazia. Almost buried in case it should frighten her, was the picture that she would be working with others of his level.

She continued to bask in the thrill of that moment. At last, Teacher actually needed her for the high level skills which had been the focus of her training. It was nearly five years since the LifeLines of her parents and older brother had been terminated in a freak Omnitor accident and she had been orphaned. He had taken her in as his junior apprentice two years earlier than the customary age. Since then he had been like a father to her. More so than ever her real father had been.

‘You have great potential.’ Ceegren had said on her arrival. ‘I can help you develop that. But only if it is what you want. To know if you want that, you have to find your Self. Explore. Everything. If you so wish.’

Necessity had forced Xaala to learn much earlier than most children to hear the thoughts that others considered were hidden by their Privacy Shields. Although clouded, the images accompanying his words had been clear. The three segments of her DNA like a ladder reaching into the sky, with a few dark clouds scudding across. A beautiful sunrise at the top of the ladder. Later, she came to realise that Ceegren’s underlying message had deliberately been half hidden, and he had been testing her.

She had explored and made mistakes, yet never been criticised. Each had been used as a lesson. She knew he loved her but could not show it, because he was Teacher and a hard task master. He demanded the best, yet in such different ways that she always strove willingly to comply. She longed to repay him for his faith in her.

Now she was relaxing, reinforcing in her unconscious the energy signatures of both twins that she had extracted from the MentaNet. ‘They need to be your own copies, as you perceive them,’ Ceegren had said when she had suggested that surely he was far more skilful in providing such images.

Mixed groups of senior and junior Custodians were monitoring all possible communication wavelengths. Their principal duty being to block all communication until Ceegren was able to act. Her duty was to make her unconscious aware that it needed to be permanently open to any other trace of the twins’ signatures in the quantum field. When discovered, she was to reinforce her images of them and, trace by trace, establish their location with increasing accuracy.

‘I expect the energies to be so subtle that what I am asking you to do can only be achieved by a youngster operating on the same wavelength. That is in the same, second era, as the twins,’ Ceegren had explained. ‘That you are little more than eighteen months older than them is perfect.’ He had smiled. ‘Think of yourself as an elderest, looking after their best interests.’

This time the accompanying imagery was clear. All Tazian life was precious. He was inviting Xaala to help to save them. Carrying an infectious disease, they needed to be kept away from Vertazia, both mentally and physically, until an effective means of isolation was established and suitable treatment devised.

It happened. There was the slightest vibration. It partly matched to Tullia. Carefully storing the impression as if wrapped in cotton wool, she walked through to Ceegren’s suite and, unusually, knocked gently on the door. She felt a quick flick across her mind. Door opened and her Teacher beckoned her to sit on her usual meditation cushion.

Seated, she relaxed and felt him slide into her mind. To Xaala it was like being stroked. Had she been a cat, she would have purred.

‘Analysis,’ Ceegren requested when he withdrew.

‘Very faint. Very far away. And also not the full signature.’ Xaala hesitated, this was very new ground for her, Quantum Twins being unlike anybody else. She licked her lips. ‘What I did not detect was any impression of Qwelby. My conclusion is that they are not mentally connected.’

‘And the energy?’

‘Healing?’

‘Excellent, my child.’ Ceegren waved the fingers of his right hand at her.

Xaala blushed, rose and returned to her room. Normally he would have thoughtsent her dismissal. To Xaala, a gesture like that was as intimate as if her had kissed her cheek. Which he never did.

Ceegren’s thoughts were pulled in opposite directions. He knew Tullia carried the genes of the great healer of the Aurigan journey. Good. Xaala could track her. What was disconcerting was that Tullia’s personal signature indicated she had to be very far away, yet she was handling energy as if she were on Vertazia. And without her twin’s participation.

If the boy were to demonstrate the same power it would be almost impossible to prevent them reconnecting. Once that happened, and if all six youngsters truly had created an energy construct in the sixth dimension, how on ’Tazia was he going to prevent the Abominations from communicating with their young friends?

His mind presented the inevitable conclusion: Reincarnation Rescheduling. He buried that disconcerting thought deep behind his impenetrable Privacy Shield.

Romain had flown into Helsinki-Vantaa airport and then on to Jyväskylä, picking up his rented car late on the thirtieth of December. On settling in his room in the Scandic Hotel he had made a secure connection with his assistants back on the island. A brief exchange and they had confirmed that there was still no news about any of the expected EM interference around Kotomäki, or anything else out of the ordinary.

A long sleep and a late breakfast was no hindrance to his plans. For those he needed full daylight. So it was a little after ten thirty on the following day that he set out. Driving the ubiquitous black Volvo, he headed south on the E63, then turned off onto the road that led to the small town.

As he reached Kotomäki his GPS confirmed what his equipment on Raiatea had indicated: that the location of the event was on the edge of the local ski slope. He parked his car near a small row of shops and walked back to the pavement that ran along a row of houses that backed onto the bottom of the slope. Even through his binoculars he was unable to see any signs of disruption to the area indicated by his equipment.

Without a drag lift, skiers had to tramp sideways uphill. They had made paths on each side of the slope alongside the trees that formed the boundaries. Carefully walking up the slippery path on the left-hand side, Romain discovered and followed tracks leading through a strip of trees and out into a small snowfield.

Although there had been a heavy snowfall since the twenty-seventh, from the still obvious disturbance of the snow it looked as though a lot of people had been searching a large area. Back in amongst the trees he found a large hole had been dug right down to the frozen hillside. Someone had seen something arrive that was so definite it had been worth a lot of effort to search for.

With the confirmation that his equipment was as accurate as he expected in determining the location of the event, he walked into the town centre and enquired at the police station. To his surprise, there had been no reports of any strange event. In response to his request it was agreed that he could return later that evening to speak with the night-shift duty sergeant.

When Romain duly returned, Sjöström listened to his explanation. She confirmed that apart from the well publicised extreme display of the Northern Lights, there had been no notable events of any sort, neither on the twenty-seventh nor around that date. No meteor falls, not even odd weather features or anything else so minor that did not warrant a formal report. She said nothing about the brief communications blackout that had occurred on the twenty-seventh. That was an internal matter and confidential. Besides which, it had been ascribed to the unusual display of what the wags were describing as the Southern Lights.

Romain left the police station feeling perplexed. All the indications from his equipment were that it had been a major event likely to have caused electro-magnetic effects across a wide area. Whether it was the massive amount of data ‘dropping off’ that had apparently ruptured his Python, or the arrival of an actual physical object, he had expected there to have been obvious signs. Lights, sound, something akin to a whirlwind looking like the Aurora Borealis reaching down to the ground. But something so minor that it had only been seen by one person, perhaps a group of friends? If it had been an object, it must have been very small as there had been no signs of any braches being broken on the close-packed trees.

A thought was elusively hovering at the back of his mind. Something to do with the road at the bottom of the slope. He made his way back to the road and walked along the houses. It was not a thoroughfare. Who would have been walking along it at that time? Schools were closed and it had not been the end of the working day.

A patch of light appeared on the snow. He looked up as someone closed the curtains of an upstairs room. That was it! The view from that level was clear across to the area that had been searched. Had someone been upstairs, looking out at the crucial moment?

He turned round and started walking back to his car. Still puzzled at what seemed to be the minimal effects, nevertheless he felt satisfied that at least he had an idea of how whatever had happened had been seen.

Some way ahead two figures appeared, walking towards him. From their gait he assumed two young men, hoods pulled up against the cold. He had almost reached a streetlight as they passed under it, talking animatedly. One white face, one black.
No,
Romain thought to himself as he walked on.
Around here I’ve seen only white faces, pink cheeks and blonde hair. Just a trick of the light.

He did a double take and stopped. A house opposite the slope. Two young men. He turned back. There were a good distance away and walking quickly. He would have to run to catch them up. ‘Steady David,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Lost in thought, staring at the ski slope, you don’t know even know for certain they came out of one of these houses.’

He stood for a moment looking at the houses and the ski slope. Despite his burning desire to find whoever had seen, and possibly found, whatever might have arrived, he knew that a stranger calling at houses in the dark and on New Year’s Eve was not a good way to start his enquiries. Besides which, still feeling jet-lagged, he needed another good night’s sleep. Returning to his car, he drove back to his hotel in a contemplative mood.

Romain had staked his career and a considerable, hard earned fortune on his belief in the experiments that the rest of the scientific community derided. He had to succeed. It was not just for fame and glory and the confirmation of his erstwhile impressive reputation. Success would establish him as one of the leading scientists of all time, ranking along with Copernicus, Newton and Einstein.

He saw a glowing future. The certain award of the Nobel Prize for Physics followed by his appointment as the first Director-General of the newly established Trans-Dimensional Research Institute. Possibly even the Romain Institute. ‘Professor Sir David Romain CH, FRS,’ had a nice ring to it.

Back in his room in the hotel, he took a small bottle of wine from the refrigerator and poured a glass. He needed the cold bite of the Chardonnay to help settle his nerves. Now, on the brink of the most important discovery of his life, it looked as though someone else was about to beat him to it. If someone had found an object, what would they do with it? Show it to family and friends then, curious at to what it might be, take it to the museum in Jyväskylä?

He gritted his teeth. No-one was going to steal from him the fruits of all the years of hard work, isolated from the majority of his fellow scientists apart from holding a Visiting Professorship at a minor university unknown outside the USA.

His mind went back to an evening in the early years of working by himself.

Disappointed at another failure of one of his key series of experiments, he had gone to his suite of rooms, showered and changed into pair of black trousers, a very fine black polo neck, socks and shoes. All to match David Niven in what was one of Romains’ favourite films: playing Sir Charles Lytton in the Pink Panther series

With his suite of rooms on the top floor of the complex of laboratories high up on the mountainside, looking across his patio he had a marvellous view of the ocean. Where the pale blue sky met the dark blue sea, the curved horizon was sharply defined. For a moment he felt he was standing on a flat, round planet, looking at World’s End.

Believing in what he called the multiverse, comprising the whole of everything, as essentially alive, he stepped out onto the patio and raised his glass of Martini to the scene in front of him and promised: ‘I will prove that you are the true reality.’ He thought of all the work he had done over the last few years and added a heartfelt plea. ‘I just need a little bit of help.’

Determination filled him. ‘I will do anything, anything at all to succeed.’ The stem of the glass snapped in his fingers. He looked at it, bemused. Blood was trickling from a cut. He gave a grim smile. Tracing his family back through the ages he had discovered a Norse heritage with the original family name being Reginsen, corrupted over the years to Rolandson, which he had changed to Romain along with changing his birth name of Desmond to David.

‘With my Viking heritage, this looks like a blood oath,’ he murmured.

As it dipped onto the horizon, the sun mirrored the dark red colour. Carefully holding the bowl of the glass with his cut hand he raised it to the sun and drank the last drops of his Martini.

‘Well, Reginsen?’
A voice echoed from the past.

He looked at the little trickle of blood and, beyond it, the sun seeming to taunt him with the same colour. The sun, the giver of life to the whole solar system.

He felt his body tremble with the force of the commitment he was being compelled to make.

‘I promise I will do whatever it takes to prove the existence of other dimensions.’ He raised his hand to his lips and licked up the blood.

‘Well done, Reginsen.
’

In his hotel room, with the windows closed and the central heating on, he shivered as a chill breeze swept over him, through him, raising goosebumps and temporarily numbing him. He had the weird sensation that he was his equipment detecting a disturbance in the quantum field.

He stepped to the window with the glass of wine in his hand. He had not drawn the blinds and he looked up into the dark night sky and the bright, full moon. A new energy pulsed from deep within, bringing images of a Viking longship ploughing through storm-tossed waves. He was both manning the steering board and standing in the prow, holding the carved warhead as he peered into the mists.

Feeling that he was committing himself to a partnership with that inner voice, he softly repeated his oath.

‘I promise I will do whatever it takes to prove the existence of other dimensions.’

He tossed back the remains of his drink in one gulp.

‘Whatever it takes!’

He felt a sense of satisfaction deep within that seemed to come from another person, Rekkr Reginsen as he named what was becoming his alter ego. The old Norse “Rekkr” meaning both “man” and “warrior.”

Later that night as he settled down to sleep he felt optimistic. He would start his enquiries the following day with the row of houses facing the ski slope. He was sure that was where the answer lay.