GeneSys

GeneSys Page 1

by Roger Carter

GeneSys

  By Roger Carter

  Copyright 2013 Roger Carter

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  Table of Contents

  Part 1: Origins

  Part 2: Eden

  Part 3: Angels

  Part 4: Aliens

  Part 5: Dragons

  Part 6: Apocalypse

  Part 1: Origins

  One

  Guadalcanal, The Solomon Islands, 2040 AD

  It was the mother of all hot flushes. Dawn gripped the handrail at the side of the pool, the sweat dripping from her brow, and prayed that she wouldn’t expire. When she had arrived at the dolphinarium entrance ten minutes ago she’d felt perfectly OK, apart from some jet lag, yet now her head was pounding, her pulse was racing, and her cheeks were on fire. On top of that she was starting to feel giddy. She had been looking forward to this visit for ages, but now that she was finally here, with the two dolphins circling the pool and eyeing her curiously, all she could think about was the heat engulfing her body. That, and the earth-shattering event that had set her on fire.

  The tropical sun was beating down out of a cloudless sky, but it wasn’t this that was raising her temperature. Her jet lag wasn’t to blame either, nor was she suffering from a bout of tropical fever. The real culprit was standing just a couple of feet away. His name was Rick, and she had instantly fallen for him. It was as though someone had cast a spell on her, for it was red-hot head-over-heels love at first sight.

  Rick was the member of staff who had been assigned to look after her. When they had met at the entrance a spark of interest had lit up his eyes, but now he seemed more interested in the two dolphins swimming languorously below them. Clearly unaware of the fire that he had ignited in her, he was watching them and virtually ignoring her. But Dawn couldn’t ignore him. Whenever she glanced his way her heart beat faster and her young body reacted like that of a menopausal woman, engulfing her in such a hot flush that her head throbbed, her cheeks turned bright red, and sweat broke out all over her slender body. Never before had she experienced such a rush of hormones, and it was most embarrassing. She pulled her sunhat lower over her eyes, adjusted her sunglasses, and hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  Below her, the cool water lapped temptingly against the concrete side of the pool, and she gazed down longingly at it. If only she could forget her manners and slide under the rail and join the dolphins for their swim! Such unseemly behaviour was out of the question of course, especially in front of the yummiest man she had ever met.

  If her body wasn’t swimming, her head certainly was. The ground beneath her feet had started to pitch and roll, and the buildings on the opposite side of the dolphinarium were swaying unsteadily as if they were drunk. What on earth could be happening to her? Was falling in love always like this? She shut her eyes, hoping to stop the mad gyrations, but the drunken lurching only got worse, and she began to feel sick. Suddenly her legs crumpled beneath her. Panicking now, she clung on to the handrail for dear life and slumped forward against it, so saving herself from collapsing into a heap at Rick’s feet.

  She gasped and opened her eyes, and, as if in a dream, found herself gazing down at the pattern of ripples criss-crossing the water below. They sparkled in the bright sunlight, like a multitude of glittering jewels, and a long-forgotten childhood memory popped into her mind: it was of the magic she’d felt when, on a visit to her granny’s house, she’d played with an old-fashioned kaleidoscope. Each shake of the device had produced a wonderful new pattern from the multi-coloured shapes within it, and now it seemed to her that these ripples were equally magical.

  She watched entranced as the sparkling patterns played themselves out, and as she lost herself in the wonder and magic of the vision, the heat and the jet lag and the giddiness and the passionate desire for Rick all faded away. It was as though she was floating on clouds, and the unbearable heat engulfing her body were replaced by a delicious sense of coolness and serenity, and she lost herself in the pattern of dancing lights in the water below.

  Something prompted her to look up, and her peace was abruptly shattered. There, in front of her, was her body – her own body! – slumped over the rail. It was as though she was looking at herself through a camera suspended above the water. She blinked and looked again, unable to believe her eyes. But there was no mistaking what she was seeing: she was gazing at her own body from a point in space several metres away. It was as though she’d become a disembodied spirit. And if that wasn’t spooky enough, she could at the same time feel, very faintly, the rail pressing against her stomach. She wasn’t actually disembodied, rather she was both outside her body and in it.

  She must have died, that was the only explanation for what she was experiencing. That strange hot flush had raised her body temperature so much that she had expired. Though even that was ridiculous: she was conscious and able to feel her body and therefore she had to be alive. Dawn decided that she must be hallucinating. She wasn’t actually outside her body, rather this was some kind of waking dream brought on by her jet lag and the tropical sun and all those hormones racing through her body. There’s no need to be scared, she told herself, ‘cos I’ll soon wake up. In any case, it’s much nicer being in this weird dream than being back in my body tortured by hot flushes and giddiness and passionate desire.

  And now that she had escaped from those torments, she was feeling unusually alert. It was most curious: she was feeling more alert than at any time since boarding the plane in London two days ago. How could that be, she wondered? How could she be both hallucinating and alert? Perhaps the hormones and the jet lag had affected only the right-hand hemisphere of her brain, where dreaming mainly occurred, leaving the left-hand analytical part of her brain untouched and able to function normally. She’d read somewhere that was how waking dreams worked: the right brain was asleep while the left brain remained awake.

  As she gazed at her schoolgirl body slumped over the rail, Dawn became acutely aware of the pressure of the rail against her stomach. It was the most peculiar sensation, seemingly both outside her body and in it. This has to be one of those out-of-body experiences, she told herself. She had read quite a lot about OBE’s, for she wanted to study psychology, and she’d always wondered what it would be like to have one. Well, now she knew. With growing interest, she decided she would make the most of this unique opportunity and find out everything she could about this most unusual state of mind.

  She set about trying to analyse her feelings and impressions. The weirdest thing of all was feeling that rail pressed against her stomach while at the same time seeing herself from a point in space several metres away. What else could she feel, she wondered? Concentrating hard, she found that she was aware of her feet and toes inside her shoes. She tried wriggling her toes, and, discovering that she could, automatically glanced down at her feet. To her great surprise she saw that she had a spirit ‘body’ that looked exactly like her real body. She was even wearing the same clothes, a white T-shirt and red skirt.

  Dawn examined her spirit body closely, half-expecting it to have a diaphanous, ghostly appearance, but in fact it was bright and colourful and rock solid. There was nothing that was in the least other-worldly about it. Glancing up at her real body, slumped against the rail several metres away, she was startled to note that it was quite drab in comparison. Indeed, it looked distinctly wraithlike. It was then that it dawned on her that everything else in the real world looked grey and wraithlike too: Rick, the pool, the various buildings round about, and even the tropical sun overhead. Without exception everything, apart from her own spirit body, was
tenuous, fuzzy at the edges, and drained of colour.

  Dawn felt completely baffled as she gazed around at her ghostly surroundings. This was totally the wrong way round. She was the ghost, not the rest of the world. And then she thought, to my spirit eyes this is actually the right way round, ‘cos ghosts can walk through walls and buildings and other people, so to a spirit like me the physical world is bound to look tenuous and unreal. Even to escape from my brain I had to pass through the solid bone of my skull, so that will be ghostly as well.

  And now instead of feeling baffled she felt very pleased with herself. She had managed to apply logic to this bizarre situation and so had made sense of it. It seemed odd that a spirit could feel an emotion like pleasure, but that was certainly what she was feeling. But then, she wasn’t actually a spirit, this was all a dream. A waking dream, admittedly, but nevertheless a dream. Then she thought, how weird it is that logic can be applied to something as irrational as a dream that’s conjured up by the sleeping part of my brain.

  And then she had a seriously good idea. Her analysis of this bizarre disembodied state would make a brilliant topic for the presentation she had to give in a few weeks’ time at the start of the new term. It would beat the pants off doing something mundane like showing her holiday pictures. I ought to earn an ‘A’ for originality if for nothing else, she told herself. Imagine the teacher’s face when I announce that I’ve been exploring the spirit world! Smiling inwardly to herself, she gazed around with more critical eyes, determined to discover everything she could.

  It was then that she realised that her spirit body was actually quite small. It was tiny, in fact. Glancing down at her feet and comparing her apparent height with the size of everything else round about, she estimated that she was less than ten centimetres tall. That was about as small as the fairies and goblins and leprechauns of her childhood stories. Presumably those early memories were influencing this hallucination – at least, she would certainly suggest that in her presentation.

  Encouraged by this discovery, Dawn turned her attention to her ability to float effortlessly in the air, several metres above the pool. That would certainly be good for another screenful of bulleted points. She would point out that since gravity apparently had no effect on her spirit body, the inference was that spirits have no mass. That too was entirely logical, for they have no physical reality and therefore no physical properties. She decided that in her presentation she would speculate on the possibility that she had entered a parallel universe in which mass, electrical conductivity, litmus tests and all the familiar laws and properties of nature no longer applied.

  Her gaze returned to the faintly gleaming ripples swirling across the misty water, and as she watched the pattern unfold, her curiosity slowly drifted away to be replaced by a dreamy tranquillity, and she lost herself in the peacefulness of the moment.

  Suddenly her legs collapsed, and she was catapulted back into her physical body. Her instincts saved her from falling, and she found herself gripping the handrail tightly with both hands, somehow managing to remain on her feet. She hastily straightened her body and, still holding onto the rail, followed the circling dolphins with her eyes as though nothing had happened.

  Happily, her head was no longer pounding and her giddiness had gone, and she didn’t feel unbearably hot either. She breathed a sigh of relief. Her weird waking dream had obviously done her some good. Checking her watch, she saw to her surprise that it had lasted hardly any time at all, only two or three minutes at the most.

  Unfortunately her relief didn’t last long either. Because she couldn’t help wondering if Rick had noticed her strange behaviour, she foolishly cast a surreptitious glance in his direction. In fact he was still watching the two dolphins, who were evidently far more fascinating than the drab schoolgirl at his side. However, that one glance at his gorgeous profile was enough to set her on fire again. Her heart leapt, her pulse raced, and her cheeks turned a violent shade of red. Sweat burst out all over, and she felt that she would die of embarrassment. She hastily jerked her gaze away, back to the dolphins.

  Thankfully the giddiness didn’t return and her mind remained clear, though it was another mother of all hot flushes. She’d never experienced anything like this before. Indeed, she’d always understood that only middle-aged women suffered from such flushes, never teenage girls. It occurred to her that these strange bodily symptoms were in fact just as bizarre – and just as intriguing – as her weird out-of-body experience. She had managed to apply logic to that, so why not to this oppressive internal heat also?

  She tried to work out what could be going on inside her body. For some reason the heat appeared to be concentrated in the pit of her stomach. It sat heavily inside her, like a ball of molten lava. It was as if she’d just swallowed a huge mug of very hot coffee – though in fact she’d had nothing apart from fruit and cereal and a cup of tea for breakfast, which had been a couple of hours ago, and only a few sips of cold water since. It was most mysterious. Could what she was feeling be another hallucination?

  Slowly and deliberately, she glanced at Rick again, to test her reactions. Immediately the ball of red-hot lava expanded, filling her stomach and pushing up her throat. It was as though she was a living volcano, and she glanced down at herself in alarm, half expecting smoke to be pouring forth from her nether regions. But there was nothing amiss, at least nothing that she could see.

  Then, suddenly, the fire was in her mouth, and an involuntary gasp erupted out of her. Fortunately Rick appeared not to have noticed, though she had obviously sicked up something horrible. With some trepidation she licked her lips, wondering what it was that she’d spewed up. To her relief, she couldn’t taste anything at all. There couldn’t be anything seriously wrong with her, she decided, as apart from feeling unpleasantly hot she wasn’t actually in any pain.

  But then her stomach started gurgling. Her embarrassment at this was quickly overwhelmed by the feeling of being horribly bloated. She gingerly felt her stomach with her fingers, expecting it to be ballooning out beneath her T-shirt. It wasn’t, but she was in no doubt that whatever was afflicting her had to be more than a mere illusion.

  Perhaps she should ask Rick to call a doctor. Even if she had drunk a mug of very hot coffee – which she hadn’t – it couldn’t account for this. A moment ago, molten lava might have adequately described what she was feeling, but now even that didn’t do it justice. Nuclear meltdown was nearer the mark.

  Then a dreadful thought hit her. What if she sicked up whatever ghastly brew was inside her in front of Rick? She would rather die than suffer that embarrassment. It was bad enough that he must be able to hear those rumblings from her nether regions. She glanced furtively up at him.

  And that was a big mistake. For at that very moment he looked away from the dolphins and down at her, and their eyes met. Immediately the volcano inside her erupted with overwhelming force, thrusting a jet of incandescent lava up her throat. At the same moment a wave of dizziness swept over her and her legs gave way. Panic-stricken, she grabbed the handrail and twisted her head towards the water, expecting a steaming gob of sulphurous vomit to explode out of her mouth. But incredibly there was nothing, not even a few wisps of smoke – though she was panting like an overworked steam engine.

  To her immense relief the inferno in her belly quickly died down, and with it went the giddiness and the ridiculous panting. She relaxed her grip on the railings and concentrated her gaze on the dolphins circling lazily below. She was still perspiring profusely, so that the sweat trickled down her forehead and into her eyes, her armpits felt like a swamp, and the back of her T-shirt was sodden. It was the height of embarrassment for this to be happening in the presence of the most desirable man on the planet, but at least she wasn’t about to explode.

  But then an even more alarming thought struck her. She remembered reading somewhere about people spontaneously combusting. It was an extremely rare phenomenon, but it was well documented, and there could be little doubt that this
must be what was happening to her – in which case she really ought to jump into the water with the dolphins to cool down. But when she pushed her hand beneath her T-shirt, to test the temperature of her stomach with the tips of her fingers, it didn’t feel at all hot, in fact all that sweating made it feel quite cool!

  She almost laughed with relief. Clearly she wasn’t about to set off any fire alarms. The furnace within her was just another hallucination. No doubt the excitement of being here and falling for Rick had been too much for her, and if she calmed herself down these strange sensations would quickly go away. What she needed to do to return her state of mind to normality was concentrate her full attention away from Rick and onto something innocuous, like those buildings opposite, beyond the dolphinarium.

  She stared at the tallest of them, the administration block. The name GeneSys was emblazoned across it in large red letters, and beneath it, in smaller letters, the motto Biotechnology for a Sustainable Future. She let her gaze drift across the other buildings on the GeneSys site, and tried to imagine what miracles of genetic engineering might be gestating in them. New plant or animal species yielding life-saving pharmaceutical products perhaps, or new crop strains able to withstand rising global temperatures and novel diseases.

  Her father was in one of those buildings now, being shown around some project or other. That thought reminded her that this site – GeneSys Honiara – specialised in marine biology, and that those buildings housed tanks of genetically modified fish and seaweed and other marine organisms. GeneSys was a global corporation, with biotech laboratories all over the world, each with its own specialisms, and this site was the centre for marine bio research.

  The fires within her had died down to a mere flicker, she noted with some satisfaction. To keep her mind safely off Rick and the risk of more pyrotechnics, she tried to picture what lay beyond the perimeter walls of GeneSys Honiara. First there was the tropical bush, then a mile or so further along the coast the dusty outskirts of Honiara itself, the capital of the Solomons. She thought too about the company house where she and her family were staying. It was set on one of the ridges above the coastal plain, to catch the sea breeze. And, as she contemplated all those mundane things, all feelings of unworldly heat and fire dissipated and normality returned – just as she’d hoped.

  Her mouth and her throat were still unpleasantly hot and dry, and she pulled a water bottle from her pouch and raised it to her lips. The water splashed shockingly cold against her tongue, and when it hit her throat it seemed to spit and boil, sending her into a spasm of coughing and spluttering. It was another embarrassment, worse even than her sweatiness, and she sensed Rick’s eyes on her. Even the dolphins paused in their lazy circling of the pool to glance up at her.

  However, the water had quenched her thirst and cooled her throat, and giving a couple of more ladylike coughs she tapped her water bottle and explained: “It went down the wrong way.”

  Rick chuckled and said teasingly, “Tell me another – there’s vodka in there!”

  His New Zealand accent was very appealing, and Dawn giggled shyly. Unlike many of the girls at school, who would have called her a snot and done their best to make her feel gross, he had brushed her spluttering aside with his little joke.

  She felt completely normal now, and almost at ease in Rick’s presence. She managed to smile up at him. “Please don’t tell my dad. If he found out about my drinking habit he’d kill me.”

  Rick laughed. “Not very broad-minded, eh? Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret.”

  Dawn’s heart missed a couple of beats. She had never shared secrets with boys, or anything else with them for that matter. She had always been too bookish to bother. She was also a late-developer physically, having reached puberty a couple of years later than most of her friends. In any case, few of the boys she knew – mostly her brother’s friends – had been particularly appealing. But the idea of sharing a secret with Rick, the new-found love of her life, was most exciting. Not this silly jokey secret, of course, but, she hoped, a much more momentous and intimate secret.

  As she contemplated that enticing prospect, her imagination took over. Dawn had always had a vivid imagination, and the picture arose in her mind of them sitting together on the beach in the moonlight, the waves lapping at their feet and the cicadas chirruping in the bush behind. They hadn’t yet kissed or held hands, but now he placed a tentative arm around her shoulder, and she responded by touching his fingers. Then he started stroking her tenderly with one hand, while the other lifted up her face to his. Their lips met in a long, passionate kiss, and suddenly she was pushing her body against his and her pulse was racing and she was overwhelmed with youthful passion.

  At once the dormant fires in her belly roared into life, a jet of red-hot lava exploded up her throat, and her cheeks turned incandescent. The buildings opposite began swaying drunkenly again, and she found herself gasping once more and gripping the handrail tightly to stop herself collapsing.

  Astonished at herself, she desperately tried to thrust the erotic imagery from her mind and fixed her attention on the circling dolphins in the pool below. In spite of the overwhelming heat and the dizziness, she managed to focus her mind on the task of recalling all she knew about these creatures – anything to escape the seething cauldron of desire that threatened to overwhelm her.

  Although these particular dolphins had been genetically modified, they were derived from and were outwardly identical to the bottlenose species, so-called because they had large bottle-like snouts, or beaks. She had been told that bottlenose dolphins had the largest brains for their body mass of all the sea mammals, being roughly equivalent to the brains of humans. She had also learned that dolphins were related to ungulates, and that DNA studies had shown that their closest land-dwelling relative was the hippopotamus. Another notable feature was their echo-location organ, which enabled them to ‘see’ a long way through the water. As she concentrated her mind on recalling these and other facts about the creatures, her passion abated, her internal fires fizzled out, and soon the dizziness went too.

  She couldn’t completely relax, however. She would have to be vigilant and not allow herself any further glances in Rick’s direction or any more of those delicious fantasies. Her thoughts must remain firmly focussed on those dolphins. They were the reason for her visit, after all.

  She pulled out her water bottle and took a few more swigs, this time restricting the flow so that the ice-cold liquid only trickled across her burning tongue. It made her mouth and her throat tingle, but there was no more spluttering. She permitted herself a small cough and reflected that something very strange indeed must be happening to her. She’d never had much interest in boys, and here she was imagining a torrid affair with a man that she’d only known for a few minutes and who, after her brief vacation in the Solomon Islands, would disappear from her life. And even if she did manage to see him again, what would be the point? He was too old for her, a mere schoolgirl, indeed he might even be married. In any case he hadn’t shown the slightest desire for her, apart from that initial glimmer of interest – and even that had probably been a figment of her over-active imagination.

  It was crazy. Everything that had happened in the short time that she’d been at the dolphinarium was crazy. It was almost as if she’d suddenly come under the control of a supernatural force that was driving her at breakneck speed towards some destiny of its own choosing. Certainly she could think of no rational explanation for what was happening to her body.

  She coughed again, then asked diffidently: “Could we sit down in the shade, please? I only arrived in the Solomons yesterday, and the heat’s killing me.”

  She avoided looking directly at him, but out of the corner of her eye she saw him smile down at her. “Let’s go to my office. It’s got aircon, and it’s very cosy.”

  She couldn’t help a look of disapproval crossing her face. Back in Europe, power-hungry appliances like air-conditioners were subject to strict laws.

&
nbsp; “Don’t worry,” he corrected himself hastily, misinterpreting her disapproval. “I’m not going to cosy up to you. Actually, my office isn’t very cosy at all.”

  She saw that he was blushing slightly, and she giggled. Perhaps he wasn’t as mature as she had thought. “I was worried about the aircon,” she explained.

  His face cleared. “Oh. That. No worries there, either. We don’t use fossil fuels here, GeneSys has its own wave-energy plant, just a few hundred metres out to sea, plus solar panels. The environmental impact is zero.”

  She should have guessed that. GeneSys was the wealthiest corporation on the planet, easily able to afford renewable energy plants at all its sites.

  She gestured at the imposing buildings surrounding the dolphinarium. “I guess all biotech companies can afford stuff like that.”

  He shrugged and started down the deserted poolside walkway towards his office. “You should know. Your dad’s a top GeneSys exec.”

  She didn’t reply. She was, she knew, very privileged. It was her father’s position that had enabled them to fly from England all the way to the South Pacific. Few people nowadays were allowed – or could afford – to travel by plane. And it was why she, a mere slip of a girl, had been granted VIP access to the dolphin project at GeneSys Honiara.

  She hurried along the walkway beside him. “You’d better tell the dolphins. Why we’re leaving them, I mean.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ve got brilliant hearing. They’ll have picked up everything we said.” He stopped and turned to them. “Did you get all that, guys?”

  The two dolphins twisted round in the water and wagged their beaks vigorously up and down at them, throwing water droplets high into the air. Rick glanced down at her with barely-suppressed amusement. “You see?”

  Dawn had stopped in her tracks, stunned by this display of animal intelligence. It seemed impossible that the genetic modifications to these creatures could have been so successful. “That’s amazing!”

  He nodded, then without another word turned and continued briskly along the walkway towards a low white building about halfway along it. Hurrying along behind, she couldn’t fail to notice his broad shoulders. She was quite tall but he was taller, and his curly dark hair was almost the same colour as hers. They made a good match, she thought, then promptly cut short that train of thought. It was stupid – and dangerous – to indulge herself in such girlishly romantic ideas.

  She glanced back at the dolphins. They were floating motionlessly in the water, staring up at her, and she got the impression that they were quite disappointed to see her go. It made her feel guilty, as this was a Sunday and there was no one else around to entertain them, just a skeleton staff busy with other duties.

  She gave them a wave, and they flicked their tails at her. She could sense their eyes following her as she walked with Rick towards the low building, and as she entered it the sensation of being watched grew stronger and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It was probably her imagination playing tricks on her again, but when she glanced back something more than intelligence seemed to gleam in their eyes.

  Two

  Rick hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that his office wasn’t cosy. Apart from a couple of small easy chairs for visitors, it was the most sparsely-furnished office she could imagine. There was a desk, an office chair, and a small bookcase, and no carpet on the floor. There were a few papers scattered alongside the computer on his desk, but no pictures and no photos of a wife or girlfriend.

  The absence of any sign of a romantic attachment was something of a morale-booster for Dawn, as was the air-conditioning. This happy combination made her feel so much better that she even forgot her jet lag. Confident that she was safe from any internal eruptions of molten lava or any feelings of dizziness in this cool and austere environment, she took off her sunglasses and threw Rick an experimental glance. Their eyes met, and instead of a volcanic eruption there was just a flicker of heat in the pit of her stomach, and even that died down almost immediately. She smiled at him, and again there was only a hint of warmth down below and a slight burning of her cheeks. She let out a small sigh of relief. The strange force that had come upon her when she entered the dolphinarium was loosening its grip.

  “You’re right, Rick,” she declared, throwing her sunhat onto the desk with a sudden abandon, to reveal a mop of untidy black hair. Bouncing into one of the easy chairs, she continued: “This place isn’t very cosy. What it needs is a woman’s touch.”

  She was immediately embarrassed at herself for making such a naff remark, and her cheeks turned bright red again. Hastily pulling out her water bottle, she took another swig, coughing as the cold liquid hit the back of her throat. But it stopped her blushing.

  He was eyeing her with some amusement. “You really ought to lay off that stuff,” he murmured. “At your tender age.”

  “I’m 17!” she retorted. Actually, she had only just turned 17, but there was no need to tell him that. Her father had arranged this visit as a birthday treat.

  He looked even more amused. “I’m sorry I underestimated your age. Anyway, you’d better explain why you’ve come to see our dolphins. Your father said you’re interested in psychology.”

  “I’d like to study it at uni.”

  “So why our dolphins?”

  “I’ve wanted to meet them ever since Dad first told me about them. They’ve got human minds.”

  “Ah. He told you that, did he?”

  “Well? Haven’t they?”

  He hesitated. “A sizeable chunk of their brain is human, that’s true. As you’ve seen, they’re very smart.”

  “They certainly seemed to understand what we were saying. But what about other things? I’m longing to know how good they are at maths and stuff like that.”

  “Maths, science, history, they cope OK with all of it. You saw the large computer screen on the other side of the pool?”

  “You use that for teaching? I saw the row of letters and numbers beneath it, below the water. I suppose the dolphins use those to communicate with their teachers.”

  He nodded. “We’re putting them through a comprehensive educational programme. They’re doing very well, considering they’re only ten years old.”

  She stared at him in wonder. The strange force within her responded by growing decidedly warm, but she was too intrigued by his words to let that bother her. “That’s amazing! Is GeneSys trying to put human intelligence into other animals besides dolphins?”

  He shook his head. “Only bottlenose dolphins have big enough brains. It might be possible to shoe-horn our brain-power into chimps and a few other species, but what would be the economic benefit?”

  Her father had told her a little of GeneSys’ vision, that the seas would one day be managed and harvested in a sustainable and carbon-neutral way using dolphin farmers. It would help feed a hungry world – and, no doubt, swell GeneSys’ bank account.

  “You must be really pleased with the way things are going.”

  “I only joined the project a few months ago – when I left uni – but the other guys are certainly pretty upbeat about things.”

  “I bet they are,” she murmured absently, her thoughts elsewhere. If he had only just graduated, then he could only be 21 or 22, not much older in fact than her brother. Not too old for her after all – and certainly not married yet. To her alarm her insides started to heat up again, and she felt her stomach rumble, and she hastily pushed such romanticising aside and concentrated on what Rick was telling her.

  “Apparently it was really difficult engineering these creatures,” he continued. “As you probably know, the bioengineers had to splice parts of the human genome controlling brain development into the dolphin genome, then incubate the result. There were hundreds of trials, and all the embryos were either misformed or they died. It took several years before they had any successes, and in the end only these two dolphins survived. They’re a couple of years off maturity, but there have been no se
rious problems so far. They’re a male and a female, and we hope they’ll be able to breed.”

  “Breed?” she asked in surprise. “Is that important? Can’t you produce offspring in the lab?”

  “Of course we can. We can extract their DNA to produce artificial embryos and put them in artificial wombs and all the rest of it, but the aim is to create a self-sustaining dolphin population. We want them to be able to procreate in the sea.”

  That made sense, she thought. Millions of dolphins would be needed to manage the oceans, and GeneSys couldn’t possibly act as mother and father to a population of that size. “And if they are able to breed, will you then go ahead and release them into the sea?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not as straightforward as that. First we’ll need to produce a starter population of perhaps a thousand more offspring in the lab, and then we’ll need to educate and train them. It’s a huge project, and it’ll take years.”

  “That size of population is bound to be viable,” she murmured thoughtfully. “So then you’ll release them into the sea?” He didn’t respond immediately, and she raised her eyebrows. “Won’t you?”

  He smiled back at her, but it wasn’t the same amused smile as before. There was something in his eyes that she’d seen before in people that she’d talked to, including some of her teachers. It was a look of respect for a teenager who was so articulate and informed. She had enjoyed a very privileged upbringing, and both her parents were academics.

  “There’s one big problem, I’m afraid. Because they have human-like brains, they sleep like us – they go into an unconscious state. Unmodified dolphins sleep differently, half a brain at a time. They’re never unconscious, one hemisphere is always awake.”

  “How weird! Why on earth would they sleep like that?”

  “It’s because their breathing is entirely under voluntary control. If they fell unconscious they’d stop breathing and die.”

  She thought about that. “If your GM dolphins sleep like us, they must be able to breathe like us too.”

  He nodded. “Not that that’s any advantage to them, it’s just a side-effect of their human brains. It means that if they fell asleep in the open sea with waves crashing over them and everything, they’d drown.”

  “Oh. I see. The project’s a failure, then.”

  “No, not a failure. We’ll come up with some kind of fix. Floating sleeping platforms, perhaps, or underwater air chambers. Some of the guys reckon it’s a good thing our dolphins are like that, ‘cos they’ll always be dependent on us for survival.”

  Dawn gazed through his office window at the blue sky beyond and wondered what was going on in the minds of those two dolphins. Certainly there had been something more than mere intelligence in their eyes when she’d glanced back at them as she’d left the dolphinarium a few moments ago, and she’d felt that unnerving prickling on the back of her neck. It was almost as if they were looking right into her soul.

  It was at that moment that the first hint of the explanation suddenly hit her. It was a thrilling idea, and it seemed to make a lot of sense, though she doubted if Rick would see it that way. But she just had to discuss it with him. She would choose her words carefully.

  “It must be fascinating to work with them,” she observed, approaching the subject in a round-about way. “Human brains in dolphin bodies. It must be so difficult for them in so many ways. For instance, they’re able to understand what humans are saying, but they can’t answer back.”

  “They can. They use their beaks to type out anything they want to say on those underwater letters. It’s quite fast – we’ve taught them the text message language used on early mobile phones.”

  “But that’s not the same as talking,” she pointed out. “It’s not the same at all. In any case, not being able to talk is only part of their problem. Our brains have evolved with our hands, so we’re able to make tools and manipulate our environment and do lots of other things. They can’t do any of those things. So what’s happening in the areas of their brains used for hand control? Perhaps they’re using all those redundant neurons for something else.”

  She threw him a cautious glance. Now she would spring her idea on him. “Probably they’ve developed strange talents that we don’t know anything about. Has anyone tried to find out? Has anyone even asked them?”

  “Wow. That’s a pretty cool idea!” Instead of scoffing he gave her an admiring glance. “I don’t think it’s occurred to anyone to ask a question like that. We need a few people like you here, people who can think out of the box."

  That compliment was so unexpected that it completely threw her. Another bout of pyrotechnics erupted in her stomach, and the unearthly heat spread up her throat to her face. She couldn’t bear the thought of more scarlet cheeks and perspiring forehead, and she hastily pulled out her water bottle. Once more the water slid icily over her tongue and into her throat, making her cough, and the conviction returned that some supernatural force must be behind these bizarre sensations. Surely those dolphins must have something to do with it.

  “I’m wondering if…” The outlandish explanation that had come to her a few moments ago was now fully worked out in her mind, but she was unsure how to express it. "I’m wondering if those dolphins have developed mental hands, imaginary hands that they can use to reach into our minds.”

  Rick looked at her sceptically. “Some kind of mental control, you mean? Telepathy?”

  She nodded, and his expression told her that, just as she’d feared, he didn’t think much of her brilliant idea. It was just a silly schoolgirl fantasy. The warmth that had filled her a few moments ago abruptly vanished.

  “Lots of things sound impossible, but they’re true,” she protested. “Like the magnetic instinct. I’ve been learning about that at school. Homing pigeons and lots of other birds can sense magnetic north, that’s how they manage to get home. Even humans have the same instinct, but it’s so weak in us that it can only be detected with statistical tests. Well, I think telepathy’s like that. It’s weak and it’s hard to detect, but it’s there.”

  He smiled, and there was the same hint of amusement in his eyes that she’d seen earlier. “How many respectable scientists believe in telepathy?” he chided. “Hardly any, I bet. And you’re seriously suggesting that our dolphins are the homing pigeons of the telepathic world? How potty is that?”

  She threw him a reproachful glance. “It must be possible, you have to admit that. What else are they using those unused parts of their human brains for if it’s not telepathy?”

  “And you have to admit that it’s a pretty far-fetched notion. There’s not a shred of evidence to support it. No one working with the dolphins has reported any strange mental effects. No telepathy, no mental control, nothing.”

  “Oh? Well, I’ve been having some very weird feelings since I arrived here. I definitely feel as though someone’s trying to control me!”

  He laughed at that. “You should lay off that bottle of yours. It’s all that vodka you’ve been drinking!”

  She giggled, and decided it was best to drop the subject of dolphin telepathy. “You’re probably right. In any case, I feel much better now. Can we go back outside, to the dolphins?”

  “OK, but we’d better give ourselves some shade. Your dad would be really mad at me if you passed out.”

  She retrieved her sunhat and sunglasses from his desk and they left the air-conditioning for a world of heat and bright sunlight. It was stickily oppressive after the cool of his office, and although she put on her sunglasses the glare from the concrete walkway hurt her eyes. The sun was higher in the sky now, and as she followed Rick silently back to the railed area where they had stood before, she was on tenterhooks in case she had another of those hot flushes and dizzy spells. Rick had talked about getting some shade, but there was no shade to be seen anywhere.

  Without saying a word he went over to a control panel set in the wall behind them and fiddled with some controls. Machinery hummed, and an enormous awning s
tarted to unfurl above them. She watched as it extended over the walkway and part of the pool, cutting out the sun.

  “That’s much better,” she said gratefully, removing her sunhat. “Why don’t you have it up all the time?”

  “We retract it if there’s a storm. There was a big one a couple of days ago.”

  The dolphins had moved into the shade and were now eyeing her expectantly. “That’s the male,” Rick told her, pointing to the larger of the two. “He’s called Adam. The female’s called Eve.”

  “Good names – for the first farmers of the seas.”

  He nodded. “You’d better introduce yourself.”

  She leaned forward and called out: “Hi Adam. Hi Eve. I’m Dawn.”

  The larger dolphin turned, flicked his tail, and sped through the water to the row of underwater characters at the opposite side of the pool, beneath the giant screen, and quickly tapped out a message. She couldn’t see what he was typing because the water was being churned up, but the letters appeared on the screen above him. They also appeared on a second underwater screen which she hadn’t noticed before, but which he could obviously see. The message read:

  HI_DAWN

  “The underscore represents a space,” Rick explained.

  “He spelled my name correctly,” she observed with some surprise.

  “I told them you were coming,” he confessed. “And how to spell your name.”

  “Well, I’m still impressed. Well done, Adam!”

  Adam responded by rolling over in the water, throwing a shower of spray into the air. Then he tapped out a second message, which again appeared on the two screens.

  U_R_HOT

  Rick burst out laughing. “You’re hot!” he translated. “I think he fancies you!”

  Dawn’s cheeks turned crimson. “He didn’t mean it like that! He means … he means what I’ve been feeling inside, ever since I got here. He’s telling me he knows how I feel!”

  Rick nodded sagely. “Ah. Telepathy.”

  “Exactly,” she told him firmly. “Telepathy.”

  He gave her a sly glance. “Perhaps you should think of a number and ask him what it is.”

  Her embarrassment turned to irritation, and she glared at him. “It’s my feelings he’s able to detect. Dogs are sensitive to human emotions, well he is too. Except that he’s able to do it telepathically. Like I said, those dolphins have developed mental hands.”

  “You seem very sure. You’ve only just met him.”

  “Of course I’m not sure. It’s just that his message is so … right.” She didn’t add that telepathy might also explain that prickly feeling she’d had when the dolphins had stared at her earlier.

  Adam was watching them intently, and no doubt listening as well – though she wondered whether he understood the word telepathy. Now he turned back to the row of letters and tapped out another quick message.

  WL_U_B_N_CHARGE_F_US?

  She stared at the message in disbelief, and then at Adam. “What? In charge of you? Of course not, Adam, I’m just a visitor. Why do you ask that?”

  COS_U_R_SPECIAL

  “Special? What on earth do you mean?”

  The dolphin stared back at her, clearly at a loss to know how to respond. Then Eve, who had been floating nearby and watching everything, darted forward and tapped out:

  U_R_POWERFUL

  Dawn couldn’t help laughing. “Powerful? I’m not at all powerful, Eve. I’m just a schoolgirl!”

  The dolphins floated motionlessly, staring up at her with their big eyes, then Adam returned to the row of underwater letters and repeated his first message.

  U_R_HOT.

  By now Rick was looking quite flabbergasted, and she could understand why. What those dolphins were saying didn’t make any sense at all.

  “I really don’t understand what feeling hot has to do with being powerful,” she called out. “Can’t you explain in some other way?”

  Adam flicked his tail and started swimming quickly backwards and forwards, so that the water became quite agitated.

  “He’s frustrated that you don’t understand,” Rick whispered.

  “Have you got any idea what they’re on about?” she whispered back.

  He shook his head.

  Suddenly Adam turned and sped back to the letters.

  WD_U_LIKE_2_RIDE_ME?

  Rick gasped. “You can’t ride him, you’d probably crack his ribs. Dolphins’ bones are quite fragile, and he’s only young.”

  Adam responded by tapping out another message: RIDE_IN_ME.

  “Ride in him?” Rick exclaimed. “What on earth is he talking about now?”

  “I think he wants me to leave my body and go inside him, telepathically,” she whispered. “This must be what Eve meant when she said I’m powerful. Somehow I’m able to do things like that.”

  She was becoming convinced that just as Adam and Eve had sensed the weird hot flushes that she’d experienced, so they had sensed her strange out-of-body experience. The flushes and the OBE’s were connected in some way, she was sure of that, and now she was certain that they were more than mere delusions.

  “Leave your body and go inside him telepathically?” Rick scoffed. “Adam can’t possibly mean that!”

  Dawn hardly heard him, for her mind was racing. The full import of those messages on the computer screen had just struck her. She had assumed that the dolphins had somehow been responsible for her bizarre experiences, but that wasn’t what they were telling her at all. What they seemed to be saying was that some special power within her was responsible, and now Adam was asking her to use that power to come into him.

  And that raised a host of questions. Why did Adam think that such a thing might be possible? Had someone else gone into him in the past, or had he had an out-of-body experience of his own and travelled into another mind? And if that were the case, what else might these dolphins be capable of?

  But the really big, puzzling question was this: If she really did have this special power, why had it only manifested itself now, in the presence of the dolphins? No, she corrected herself, it was not their presence that triggered it, but Rick’s. In fact, it wasn’t even Rick, it was her reaction to Rick. She had been powerfully attracted to him the moment they’d met, and the hormones that had flooded through her body had awakened a strange ability lying dormant within her. It was not unknown for love and desire to awaken unexpected artistic or poetic abilities in people, so why not this ability too?

  The reason why not, of course, was that the ability to leave one’s body and travel into another mind lay outside the bounds of what was scientifically possible. Rick clearly didn’t believe in the supernatural, and she didn’t either – at least she hadn’t believed in it until now. She stared thoughtfully at the two dolphins floating a short distance away in the pool, their eyes glued on her and obviously waiting for some reaction from her. She didn’t know what to say, for the notion of travelling into another mind seemed so crazy. Probably she was getting carried away, and their messages meant something far more prosaic. Well, it would be easy to find out.

  “Do you really want me to go inside you with my mind, Adam?” she called out. The larger dolphin immediately shot forward and nodded his beak vigorously, throwing large drops of water all over her.

  She was far too delighted to care about getting a bit wet, and not just because her hunch had proved spot on. The fact was, she couldn’t imagine anything more thrilling than going inside the mind of such a marvellous creature. It would be fantastic to swim in a body like his!

  Rick was looking utterly dumbfounded. “Go inside him? How does Adam expect you to do that?”

  Dawn hesitated before answering. She didn’t want him to think her mad, but there was no escaping what was on her mind. “Um, I suppose I’ve got to have some kind of, well, out-of-body experience.”

  “This is ridiculous,” he muttered, half to himself. “Adam actually expects you to somehow leave your body and go into his mind. It’s barmy.” He
clenched his fists around the handrail and glared down at the two dolphins. “Tell him it’s impossible!”

  “No, it’s not!” she retorted. She was brimming with excitement, because she’d suddenly had another brainwave. “I think I can do it. It’s something about being hot. I need to heat up!”

  Rick gave an exasperated laugh. “Heat up? Good grief, woman! What d’you think you’re going to do? Wave a magic wand and burst into flames and disappear in a puff of smoke? That would be an out-of-body experience, all right!”

  Dawn was too elated to be cowed by his irritated scoffing. “Now you’re being ridiculous,” she retorted. “I don’t need magic wands or spells or drugs or anything silly like that, I just need you to hold me tight in case I fall.”

  “What?”

  “Go on, put your arms round me.” Before he had a chance to argue she had grabbed his arms and dragged them round her, turning so that her slender body was leaning backwards against him and facing the dolphins. In her younger days she had often played boisterous games with her brother and his friends, and that easy familiarity with boys coupled with her excitement and elation stopped her feeling too embarrassed by what she was doing. As for Rick, he was too startled to resist.

  “That wasn’t too difficult, was it?” she murmured, pulling his arms more firmly about her waist.

  He glanced around, clearly extremely ill-at-ease. “It’s a good job this place is deserted,” he muttered. “I’d probably get the sack if anyone saw us.”

  Dawn didn’t reply. She was wondering what the teacher who would be assessing her presentation would make of her account of this. She attended an expensive girls-only Roman Catholic school, and most of her teachers were pretty strait-laced.

  Rick’s warm body and strong arms had exactly the effect she’d hoped for. Her insides became a sizzling inferno, her head went into a spin, and her legs turned to jelly. As she slumped dizzily forward she felt Rick tighten his grip on her, and moments later she had left her body, just as she had before, and entered the disembodied state, floating above the pool with its faint pattern of ripples. This time there were no sparkling lights, as the awning had cut out the sun, but everything else was the same as before: her mind was alert, her spirit body was bright and solid, and everything else – the pool, the buildings round about, even what she could see of the sky – had that ghostly, washed-out appearance.

  Dawn twisted her head round to see what was happening to her physical body. It was slumped in Rick’s arms, and she could feel, very dimly, their pressure about her waist. It was all very spooky, and the thought crossed her mind that perhaps she might not be able to return to her body but would be forced to wander forever as a disembodied spirit in this dismal parallel universe.

  Hastily pushing that frightening prospect aside, she turned towards the large computer screen on the opposite side of the pool and scanned the tenuous surface for Adam. At first she couldn’t see him, but she discovered that by kicking her legs with a swimming motion she was able to propel herself forward above the water, and after a little while she spotted his grey shape. He was floating motionlessly below the screen, evidently waiting for her to enter him.

  Three

  Dawn was mystified. She hovered over the ghostly form of the dolphin, wondering how on earth she was going to get into his mind. Simply gliding into his head had proved singularly unsuccessful: she’d found herself floundering in a black treacly tenuousness which she supposed was his brain, and after some frantic swimming had emerged into the daylight without making any mental contact at all. There hadn’t been even a fleeting sense of his presence.

  Evidently it was not enough merely to position herself at the same physical location in space as his brain. She should have guessed that, for whatever the mind was, it clearly transcended the brain. The fact that she was here, outside her physical body, proved that. The only way to get into Adam’s mind was to somehow think herself into it. Just as she had managed to slip out of her own brain by putting herself into a certain state of mind, so she had to do something similar to slip into his. It was, she reasoned, an out-of-body experience in reverse, and she decided she would call it an into-body-experience in that presentation of hers.

  She kicked her legs and dived down a second time towards his grey body. As before, she headed for a point between his eyes, and as before, he seemed to grow larger and larger as she approached, until, when she landed on him, his skull appeared to be several metres across. He would look huge, of course, to someone only ten centimetres tall.

  Adam’s skin had a ghostly, cobwebby feel, like a threadbare garment that was about to disintegrate into a thousand tiny pieces. One push and she would pass through it. She concentrated on that thought, and as she did so the greyness of his body darkened, and then everything went black and gooey. She had entered Adam’s skull and was now inside his brain.

  That was the easy bit. Now she had to somehow put herself in the right mental state to penetrate his mind. Perhaps the thing to do was to picture what it would be like to inhabit his body. She tried to visualise water lapping all around her, and how the world would look through his eyes. She imagined him gazing at Rick and her own slumped body at the side of the pool, and how the sun and sky would look. But however hard she concentrated on that imagery, no glimmer of light broke through the treacly darkness, nor did she gain any sense of Adam’s presence.

  I’m doing this all wrong, she told herself, what I’m picturing is too abstract. It’s not altering my mental state because it’s not engaging my emotions. To do that I need to imagine something that gets me hot and bothered, like that steamy beach scene I’d imagined with Rick.

  So what was an emotionally-engaging image of Adam’s mind? A palace, perhaps? Or the throne room within the palace, with Adam seated on the throne? But neither of those had any emotional appeal for her. Then she thought, how about a temple, with an altar, and his invisible presence floating above the altar and permeating everything? Somehow that had a definite appeal. The invisible presence would have to be male, of course, reminding her of Rick on that beach, reaching out to her…

  A great way off, in her unconscious body slumped in Rick’s arms at the side of the pool, she felt her pulse quicken in response to that thought. Simultaneously, the all-pervasive blackness engulfing her lightened slightly and the dim outline of a large stone building began to take shape around her. She gazed at it in wonder. The building was too shadowy to make out any details other than the fact that she seemed to be in a large cavernous space, but this was surely her first glimpse of Adam’s mind. She even had a faint sense of his enveloping presence.

  She had achieved this dim portrayal of Adam’s mind by incorporating those delicious thoughts of Rick into the imagery. Rick triggered my out-of-body experience, she reasoned, so it makes sense that he can trigger my into-body one.

  As Dawn savoured the faint sensation of Rick’s distant body pressed against her own, the shadowy cavernous walls took on a rosy sheen, and she could see now that she was inside a large rectangular building. Encouraged by the strengthening imagery, she closed her eyes and pictured a single romantic candle lighting up the place, set in the centre of a magnificent golden altar. Though not an altar, perhaps, but a throne. No, it would be both an altar and a throne, she decided, with a short flight of steps leading up to it. In her mind’s eye the candle was flickering brightly in the darkness and filling the temple with the sweet perfume of Rick’s – no, Adam’s – presence.

  Opening her eyes, she saw that the rose-tinted walls were now fully-formed, with fluted pillars and arches leaping high into the darkness above. It was the shape and size of a cathedral, and she was standing in the nave. In front of her was the short flight of steps that she had pictured in her mind’s eye, leading up to a magnificent golden altar. Atop the altar was a single red candle, its flame flickering brightly in the darkness, giving out sufficient light for her to see that the walls of the cathedral were decorated with elaborate carvings and coloured pic
tures, though it was still too dim to make out any details. As she gazed around the vast space, she became aware of the muted sounds of organ music reverberating around the great edifice, and the sweet smell of incense filling the air.

  This assault on her senses filled her with joy. I’ve done it, she thought, I’ve entered the temple of Adam’s mind! At the same time she could feel, very faintly, her heart racing in her distant body. And mixed in with these sensations she could feel Adam’s enveloping presence more strongly now, though this was still no more than an indefinable awareness, and she could not tell if Adam felt delight or apprehension at this invasion of his mind.

  As her eyes feasted on the marvellous scene, and the organ music and the incense wafted over her, she was struck by the thought that she couldn’t possibly have conjured up all this from her imagination alone. Surely some of what she was seeing must have come from Adam’s brain. None of it had any physical solidity, of course, it was all a kind of dream, a fanciful interpretation of the neural realities of Adam’s brain conjured up out of her subconscious mind with some input from Adam himself. She supposed that some kind of telepathy was at work between her and Adam below the level of consciousness, and this marvellous structure was the result of that.

  Now she saw that a number of dark doorways were spaced out along the walls of the nave to each side of her. She hadn’t noticed them before, and she supposed that, as in a dream, the cathedral imagery being conjured up out of her – and Adam’s – subconscious was fluid and not yet fully formed. She noticed too that she could now make out some of the detail of the carvings and pictures that adorned the walls, and it struck her that the cathedral wasn’t as dark as it had been before.

  She turned to the altar with the candle on top, supposing that the flame must now be burning much more brightly. Indeed it was, and the golden altar, which had taken on a translucent appearance, was also glowing with an inner light. Besides this, she could see now that it was studded with jewels of many colours, and these sparkled in the light, and it struck her that this was the most beautiful object she had ever seen. As she drank in the vision, she became filled with a sense of something that she had never felt before in her life: a sense of holiness.

  Entranced, the conviction grew in her that this wonderful altar with its brightly flickering candle, this holy object, was nothing less than the seat of Adam’s consciousness. And then it struck her that although the cathedral was filled with organ music and the sweet smell of incense, there was no organ and no censers, instead the source of these sensations was the altar itself.

  Now, at last, the imagery surrounding her had become fully formed. She could make out the details of the cathedral much more clearly, and she could even see that the ceiling high above her head was decorated with what looked like religious scenes. As she turned her head this way and that, she noticed that entire end wall of the cathedral, beyond the throne that was an altar, was aglow. It had been dark stone before, and she stared at it in some surprise. As she looked, it took on a more definite texture and form, and it suddenly dawned on her that it was an enormous stained-glass window extending the full width of the wall and forming a bright backdrop to the altar. Even more surprising was the fact that it was moving, or rather the stained-glass pictures that made up the window were moving.

  At first she couldn’t make out what the moving pictures represented, but then they came into sharp focus, and she realised, with a gasp, what she was seeing. It was an image of the side of the pool and the buildings lying beyond!

  The scene shifted abruptly, and she saw Rick standing by the rail, still holding up her unconscious body. There was nothing grey or ghostly about the scene, rather it was bright and crystal-clear. She was viewing the world through Adam’s physical eyes!

  She watched transfixed as Adam’s gaze drifted lazily from one side of the dolphinarium to the other. As the scene in the window passed before her eyes, she became aware that the organ music had ceased, to be replaced by the sound of water lapping against Adam’s bulk and the cawing of seagulls flying overhead. The incense too had gone, to be replaced by the smells of the dolphinarium and slightly sickly fragrance of the flowering trees that grew along the avenues between the buildings on the GeneSys site.

  As she took all this in, another feeling began to intrude upon her consciousness: something was amiss. The thing was, Adam was lying motionlessly in the pool, only his eyes were moving. He had invited her to ride in him, and, since he was telepathic, he must be aware of her presence and even of her joy to be in him, and yet he was making no attempt to give her a ride. Surely he should now be cavorting in the water and treating her to an amazing spectacle? Yet he showed no inclination to do that, instead he was dozing in the sun as though none of these momentous events had happened inside his brain. It could only be that he was waiting for her to take the lead. He was, she supposed, acting like a horse waiting for its rider’s promptings.

  She tore her eyes away from the image in the stained-glass window and gazed around at the interior of the cathedral, with its colourful pictures and carvings and those dark doorways running along the length of the nave. What promptings was Adam expecting from her, she wondered?

  And then she knew what it was. Whether it was by telepathy or by insight, she couldn’t tell, but she knew what he was waiting for. Just as a rider took control of a horse, he was waiting for her to take control of him. She was to be his possessing spirit!

  Her mind went into a spin. That had to be what Adam was waiting for, but how could he know about such things? Had he experienced spirit possession before? An hour ago she would have scoffed at the idea of spirits, let alone spirit possession, yet here was Adam, a dolphin, evidently familiar with such ideas. He had invited her to ride in him, and in his mind that meant that she should take possession of his body.

  She couldn’t imagine how he had arrived at such insights; it surely couldn’t have been from his human teachers. But that wasn’t her immediate worry. The more pressing question was, how on earth was she going to take control of his body? It’s not even a human body, how on earth was she going to swim like a dolphin, wagging that great tail and everything?

  But of course a horse rider doesn’t know how to flex the horse’s leg muscles or any such thing, but by other promptings makes the horse do exactly what’s wanted. The horse’s own brain looks after the low-level stuff, leaving the rider free to make the high-level decisions. It’ll be same with Adam, she reasoned. I’ll decide where his eyes would look and where his body will go, and his brain will convert my wishes into the electrical signals that control the various muscles in his body. What she would be possessing would be the higher decision-making functions of Adam’s brain, the rest of his brain would carry on as normal.

  Even so, how was she to go about taking over Adam’s higher functions? How did spirits possess the bodies of others? Pictures of grotesque demons invading human minds flooded through her, and she glanced around the cathedral nervously, half-expecting demons to spring from those dark doorways to each side of her. The possibility that she might encounter evil spirits while out of her body hadn’t occurred to her, but if she could become a disembodied spirit then, she supposed, so could lots of other creatures as well.

  But nothing moved in the shadowy depths of the cathedral, all she could sense was Adam’s reassuring presence. If there was an evil presence here, he would surely have sensed it, and she supposed she would too.

  What a difference an hour had made to her view of reality! An hour ago she would have dismissed as rubbish any thought of disembodied spirits. She had always assumed that spirit possession was no more than a bizarre psychological state. Now her entire world-view had radically altered, and she was quite prepared to accept such things as real. The only question was, how on earth could her disembodied spirit possess Adam?

  Her gaze returned to those dark doorways spaced out along the nave’s walls. She guessed they led to the various compartments of Adam’s mind, but would any of them offe
r a route to taking him over? She supposed not, guessing that she had to go to the seat of his consciousness for that. She fixed her gaze on the glowing altar with the brightly flickering candle flame flickering above it, knowing that that had to be the doorway to possession.

  Although there was no actual physical altar or flickering candle, and like everything else here they were all mental constructs, they were nevertheless based on something real, and it was reasonable to assume that if she sat on that altar she would be performing some mental or spiritual act that would replace Adam’s consciousness with her own. That, she supposed, would be her route to gaining control over his body.

  And so Dawn set off down the nave towards the steps leading up to the altar. She was no longer able to glide through the air, instead she had to walk, and as she walked she realised that this imaginary world operated according to the normal laws of physics. The laws of gravity applied, and the stone floor felt hard and unyielding to her feet.

  For the first time it struck her that it wasn’t just the floor that was solid, but everything else as well. Nothing here was ghostly or tenuous. There was no way that she could walk through the walls to each side of her. Though this isn’t at all surprising, she reasoned, because if I’m a spirit and I look solid, then this spirit-world structure that’s been dreamed up by me and Adam will look solid as well. It’s based on our experiences of the real world, so it’ll have real-world properties.

  She paused at one of the doorways. Like the others, it was shrouded in darkness and she couldn’t see what lay in the space beyond, though it must represent something in Adam’s brain. Curiosity got the better of her, and she walked over to it and peered warily inside, but all she could see in the darkness was a large empty room, lacking windows or fittings or any furniture. She stood in the doorway, mystified. How could any part of Adam’s mind be completely empty?

  She ought to turn away and hurry on down the nave towards the altar, but she just had to find out more, and, throwing caution to the winds, she stepped inside. Immediately a bright image of a human face materialised in front of her. Startled, she jerked back, and a second face burst out of thin air. She twisted away, and that face was replaced by a third. She sprang sideways and twisted about, trying to escape the faces, but with each movement another one leapt out of nowhere at her.

  Panic-stricken, she stumbled backwards towards the door and the nave beyond, but yet more faces sprang at her. As she twisted hither and thither her panic started to abate, for none of the faces actually touched her, and none of them seemed threatening in any way. These are just images, she realised, this room is the representation of the part of Adam’s brain that holds his memories of faces. If I search long enough, I’ll come across Rick’s face, and mine.

  She backed out of the doorway, then continued walking down the nave towards the altar. But when she reached the next doorway, she couldn’t resist taking a quick peek inside. This time she was besieged by images of animals and fishes, and she realised that she had entered the place where Adam’s natural history knowledge was stored. It occurred to her that this cathedral that her dreaming mind had constructed was also a kind of museum, with different rooms for different kinds of memories.

  But she was wasting time. Leaving the natural history room, she continued on towards the altar. The sense of Adam’s presence was growing stronger now, which added to her own sense of wonder and excitement, and she felt her pulse, back in her body, start to quicken once more. Adam must have sensed her closeness, for the flame above the altar was now burning much more strongly, illuminating brightly the altar and the steps leading up to it. Gazing up at the glowing scene, it seemed to have taken on an almost erotic allure, drawing her on. As she hastened ever faster up the nave towards it, the flame above the altar leapt up even more enticingly, and she couldn’t stop herself breaking into a run. All she wanted was to get to that delicious object, to throw herself upon it and shower it with her kisses. She desired it with all the hot passion she’d felt for Rick.

  Startled at herself, she came to her senses and pulled herself up to an abrupt halt. This was seriously weird! How could she feel such a passion for an inanimate object? There was nothing remotely human about that altar, or even remotely dolphin for that matter. In fact, it didn’t resemble any kind of living creature at all. But then, as she stared in confusion at it, she saw that it did have an animal-like quality. Its surface, she saw, was decorated with a pattern of scales encrusted with the jewels she’d noticed earlier, and its legs, which were curved, had clawed feet with a large jewel at the end of each claw. As her eyes drank in all these animal features, there welled up within her an overwhelming urge to mount it. I can’t possibly talk about this in my presentation back at school, she thought.

  And then, to her alarm, she realised it wasn’t just desire that was burning inside her. Real flames seemed to be flickering up her stomach lining, and she was beginning to feel very hot indeed. Although this must be another of those hot flushes in her distant physical body, she could feel the flames and the heat quite plainly. Surely she must be only moments away from waking up panting and perspiring in Rick’s arms! She couldn’t imagine anything more embarrassing, it would be the most ignominious end to her great adventure.

  She glanced around, fearing that the cathedral imagery might be breaking up and the real world intruding, but the walls and the doorways and everything around her were as steady and solid as a rock. There seemed to be no danger that the vision would fade away, so she supposed that she would be saved that embarrassment. Still, there was no time to waste, and she hurried on towards the steps and the altar – or was it a throne? It was beginning to look like the latter, with its jewel-encrusted scales and its clawed feet.

  Somewhat worryingly, the heat inside her was continuing to grow. She seemed to be more sensitive to it now that she was a spirit than when she had been in her physical body. She could even feel the individual flames, running up and down her insides like hot spiders, and though it wasn’t painful, it tickled. As a spirit she was bound to feel them more clearly, she told herself, as they were spirit flames, not physical fire. She reached down to scratch herself.

  That was when she had her next big surprise. She had assumed her stomach would feel cool to the touch, as it had before, but instead it was hot, very hot, so hot in fact that she almost scorched her fingers. She pulled her hand away and, glancing down at herself, saw to her utter horror that her body had started to undergo a terrifying metamorphosis. She was no longer human, she was beginning to change into a prehistoric monster! Her red skirt had disappeared, and in its place was growing a mass of bony red scales.

  Suddenly she felt a stab of pain and a wrenching about her shoulders, and then a sharp spasm across her hips. She gasped in agony, but the pain quickly passed, and she found herself crouching on all fours with her long broad tail lashing the air.

  Twisting her head round in alarm, Dawn gaped at her new body. Her neck was so long that she could examine it from every angle, and what she saw blew her mind. It was covered in red scales from her head to her tail, she had vicious claws that stuck out from her feet like steel daggers, and her tail, which was huge, was tipped with a blade so large that it could slice a man in two. She also had wings, and when she unfurled them they were so large they reached halfway to the cathedral walls. As for the fire in her belly, that was so real that wisps of black smoke were creeping out of her nostrils and curling up into the air. She was the greatest of all mythological creatures, she was a dragon!

  Dawn was stunned. It was not so much the transformation itself that stunned her, but what it implied. For while she could readily accept that anything might be possible in this dreamlike world of spirits, including being turned into a dragon, it was really hard to believe that the heat she’d experienced in her physical body must have been dragon-fire.

  She surveyed her new body again, and felt the inferno in her belly, and repeated to herself this inescapable conclusion: I’ve actually experienced d
ragon-fire in my physical human body! There’s something in me that’s not human, just as there’s something in Adam that’s not dolphin. I’ve been modified with the genes of some other species!

  She couldn’t begin to get her head round the implications of this earth-shattering discovery. In any case, now that she was a dragon, the desire to get to that throne was becoming so overwhelming that she really couldn’t concentrate on anything else. On top of this, she could now feel Adam’s presence much more keenly now, and she could even sense his emotions: great pleasure that she was in him, and great excitement mixed in with slight apprehension because she was about to possess him. I’m telepathic, she thought, in my dragon body I’m telepathic, just like Adam!

  The heat and the pressure continued to build in her belly, and this was compounded by Adam’s growing excitement. Now the flame above the altar that was a throne was leaping right up to the cathedral roof, and the sight of this fire aroused her dragon body to such an extent that, without her willing it, her clawed feet began to paw the ground in agitation. It struck her that she and Adam were like a pair of ardent lovers, each fuelling the other’s passion.

  Her belly now felt like it was about to burst, and she glanced down at herself. To her alarm, she saw that her nether regions were indeed visibly expanding, and an awful vision flashed through her mind of an explosion so great that Adam’s skull exploded, filling the dolphinarium pool with blood. But then there was a loud click at the base of her throat and some kind of safety valve flipped open, releasing the pressure. Heat rushed up her long neck, and all at once flames spurted from her jaws and clouds of black smoke billowed from of her nostrils.

  She was too relieved to be still intact to be dismayed by this spectacle. She was a dragon, after all, and smoke and fire were what dragons did. In any case, the possibility that she might catch fire was of little consequence compared to the powerful urges that were driving her on. For that enticing throne was now glowing a deep red, as though it were lit by burning coals, and the flame above it had become such a roaring jet of crimson incandescence that its jewel-encrusted scales sparkled like a thousand bright stars.

  And then she saw the altar – or was it a throne? – for what it really was. It was so brightly lit now that that there could be no mistake. No wonder her dragon body was so desperate to mount it! Bright red, with its bejewelled scales and clawed legs and leaping fire, it was the most alluring creature she had ever seen. It too was a dragon, and it was calling out to her with desire!

  No longer able to resist its pull, Dawn hurled herself into the air, wings flapping furiously. The instincts and skills needed to control her dragon body were hardwired into her, and she swooped unerringly towards the object of her passion. In an instant she was hovering above it, and now its jewels were sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow. As she gazed down at it she became utterly entranced and filled with the same wonder and awe that had come upon her before as she stood at the poolside, staring down at those ripples in the water sparkling in the sunlight. She felt as if she was in the presence of the divine. This wonderful object had to be more than just a figment of her and Adam’s imaginations. This throne, this altar, was the holy of holies!

  She realised now that she had misinterpreted entirely the nature of the passions that had gripped her dragon body. She didn’t really understand any of it, and she certainly didn’t understand why taking over Adam’s mind should inspire in her a sense of the divine, but it was clear that the urges that had gripped her were not erotic. They were religious.

  Her knowledge of such things was purely academic, but she’d read in one of her psychology books that sexual ecstasy and religious ecstasy share some of the same neural pathways in the brain. It was no wonder that, in a body so different from her own, she had confused the two. But she felt much more comfortable now that she knew that her passions were inspired by religious awe and ecstasy rather than carnal desire. Certainly it would be one less black mark from her teacher when she came to give that presentation.

  And so, with her mind now at ease and her heart rejoicing and her wings flapping madly, Dawn settled down onto the altar that was a throne and the seat of Adam’s consciousness. Adam was in a similar state of ecstasy, and the altar opened up and something like welcoming arms embraced her. There was a brief moment of darkness, and then her mind expanded and she was reaching outwards to embrace all the planets and all the stars, out to the farthest galaxy. Then she shrank back again and fell into the stained-glass window. Its images exploded to fill her vision, water was lapping against her bare flesh, and seagulls were caw-cawing to each other in the distance.

  And as the vivid impressions hit her, she knew that this was no spirit-world flight of fancy. This was for real. She had become a dolphin!

  Four

  Dawn really enjoyed being a dolphin. She savoured the cool water against her skin, she listened to the cries of the seagulls through her sensitive ears, and she marvelled at the acuity of her vision. Sinking below the surface, she revelled in her ability to hold her breath for ages without any discomfort, and at the clarity of her underwater vision. She could see clearly to the far end of the pool, which was about 100 metres away. Adam’s brain was automatically integrating the information from his echo-location system with his visual system to provide this remarkable image. And when she flapped her tail, she shot through the water at an impressive speed.

  If that wasn’t exciting enough, she now had total access to all of Adam’s memories, and that was really amazing. He was like an open book, and she was somehow aware of the endless hours of teaching he’d received, floating in the water before his human tutors and that giant screen, and of how he could catch the emotions of his tutors, whether they were pleased or frustrated at his progress, and whether they felt affection for him.

  She thought about the question that had bothered her earlier: how did Adam know that she was able to enter him, and how did he know about spirit possession? Had he experienced that for himself? Immediately she found herself immersed in memories of just such an incident. It had occurred almost three years ago, when he and Eve were just seven years old. They had been given an experimental meal of fish that had been genetically modified to produce a powerful psychotropic drug, and afterwards they’d both had an out-of-body experience in which they’d gone on a spirit journey.

  Dawn thought it strange that they’d both found it so easy to slip out of their bodies. Very few humans would have been able to do that, and she wondered if it was related to their telepathic abilities. Adam’s memories provided no answers to that, however. He and Eve had never been given those fish again, and so they had been unable to repeat the experience or investigate it more fully.

  Adam had at first found it very unnerving to be floating outside his body. He thought perhaps that he was dead, for the world was now a pale shadow of its former self. However, Eve’s spirit was within him, and she looked bright and solid enough, and when he peered round at himself he saw that he was the same. That reassured him, and he guessed that he was simply having a very strange dream. And when he realised that they were now able to swim through the air instead of through water, he became quite excited.

  Dawn wondered if he had also turned into a dragon, but he had no recollection of such a thing. Although he knew about these creatures from the animated films he’d seen on the screen in the pool, to him they were no more real than the fairies and goblins and other fantastical inhabitants of his childhood stories. She knew then that the imagery of the jewel-encrusted throne with its dragon scales and clawed feet had been the product of her mind alone.

  He had flapped his tail and soared high into the sky like a bird, with Eve beside him, and they had circled around gazing down at the broad grey ocean and waves breaking on the shore, and further along the coast the big human city of Honiara. But everything was ghostly and indistinct.

  Eve, in contrast, seemed to glow with life. He could sense her feelings more vividly than ever before: he felt her wonde
r and excitement and curiosity, as well as her nervousness about the strange world that they now inhabited. Strangely, these were mingled with his own emotions, so much so that he could hardly distinguish the one from the other. It was as if their minds were becoming fused. They stared at each other, and he detected her own bewilderment, and that told him that she too was feeling this fusing of minds.

  They floated towards each other, their bodies touched, and suddenly they were one. He was Eve and she was Adam, and he was as much aware of her memories as she was of his, and they were united in the same spirit body and looking through the same spirit eyes. As Dawn contemplated these bizarre memories, it occurred to her that in a way the two young dolphins were possessing each other. This was a total meeting of minds.

  They circled high above the ocean, relishing their oneness, and then, acting as a single entity, they flew over the city towards the tree-covered hills in the centre of the Guadalcanal. They passed over several villages with wooden houses and surrounded by vegetable gardens, and several men and women working in the gardens. Curious for a closer look, they glided down to watch one of the men.

  Adam had always wondered what it would be like to have a human body, and Eve had too, and it occurred to their merged consciousness that perhaps they could enter this man’s mind and take possession of him. They had learned in their human culture lessons that many people, especially in places like the Solomon Islands, believed in spirit possession.

  And so they had glided into the man’s skull. Unlike Dawn, who had had some difficulty constructing a spirit-world representation of Adam’s mind, they seemed to have had no problems at all. They had immediately found themselves, not in a cathedral, but in a seaweedy paradise consisting of a lagoon with a small island in the middle. They swam towards the island, and when they reached it they saw it was covered with grass and flowers, and on it was a large screen showing the world through the man’s eyes. How interesting, Dawn thought, that whereas her mind had conjured up a stained-glass window to portray the world beyond, they had conjured up a computer screen. Alongside this screen was a statue of a beautiful woman holding a flaming torch above her head, their equivalent of the golden altar with its flickering candle.

  Adam felt himself drawn to that statue with its flaming torch, just as Dawn had been drawn to the golden throne, and he tried to push himself onto the island to get to it. Somewhat to his surprise he succeeded, and when he looked down at himself he saw, to his astonishment, that he had become a human. A young boy, in fact. He stared down at his body, which was completely naked, and he wiggled his fingers and moved his legs and jumped up and down. Although it seemed a little strange at first, he quickly got the hang of it, and then it all seemed completely natural. It’s because, in my brain, I am human, he had thought.

  Dawn, reliving this memory, felt a pang of unease. Is this why I turned into a dragon and found I could so easily control its body? Because I really am a dragon? She pushed that unnerving thought aside and tried to concentrate on Adam’s memories.

  Adam had realised that, in taking on a human form, he had separated from Eve and could no longer sense her emotions. Where had she gone? Had something happened to her? He looked round in alarm, and saw to his relief that she too had become human – a young girl, in fact – and completely naked. Like him she had crawled out of the water onto the island. They stared at each other, and for the first time in their lives spoke to each with human words.

  “Eve?” he faltered. “You’re Eve?”

  Eve looked down at her body. “We’re human!” she exclaimed, stating the obvious. “How strange.”

  “Really strange. I can’t feel your mind.”

  “I can’t feel yours, either. It’s because humans can’t do telepathy. We’ve left the telepathic part of ourselves behind.”

  “But where is it?” Adam looked around, then peered into the water. “What does that part of us look like?”

  “I don’t expect it looks like anything. The thing that we were when we came together, we’ve left something of that behind.”

  “But we should be able to see it,” he persisted. “If we left something behind it should be floating in the water.”

  “Perhaps it’s still inside us, connecting us together, but because we’re human we can’t feel it.”

  “You’re probably right.” He turned from her and gazed at the statue. It was very beautiful, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “I want to touch it,” he whispered. “Do you think it will mind?”

  “I want to touch it too. Why don’t we try?”

  They walked across the grass towards the statue. But as they approached it, they were suddenly overwhelmed by a terrifying sense of fear.

  “Something’s wrong,” Eve gasped, grabbing his arm. “I feel really frightened, something’s about to attack us!”

  “It’s the man that we’ve entered, he’s frightened ‘cos he feels our presence, he knows we’re inside his mind. He thinks we’re attacking him! The people living here are really afraid of spirits.”

  The island on which they were standing began shaking violently, so much so that they were thrown to the ground. Fortunately the grass was soft and they didn’t hurt themselves, and they managed to scramble to their feet and dived back into the lagoon. Now the lagoon itself began to bubble and shake, and then the imagery started to fall apart, and all at once Adam found himself hovering above the man with Eve beside him and they were dolphins again.

  To Adam’s relief their telepathy had returned, and he could feel Eve’s comforting presence. He moved closer to her, and as he did so he felt that sense of oneness with her return, and then their bodies touched and their minds fused. His consciousness mingled with hers, and the realisation came upon them that a part of their merged mind had persisted even after they had separated into their human forms, and that it had observed everything that had happened to them. They saw themselves walking on that island through its eyes, and then their frantic escape from the violent shaking as they jumped back into the lagoon. It was very strange, and they didn’t understand it at all, but it seemed that in coming together they had brought into being something that was greater than the sum of their parts.

  Once more they rose up into the sky and continued their flight. Passing over another village, they spotted a man and a woman lying together beneath a tree, and because they really wanted to know what it was like to be a human they decided to make a second attempt at possession. Again they entered the man without difficulty, and again they found themselves swimming in a lagoon. As before, there was an island in the middle of which was a large screen and a statue of a beautiful woman holding a flame. This time the flame was much bigger, flaring up and casting a reddish sheen over everything.

  Adam clambered onto the island, a young boy once again. As before, he had lost the sense of Eve’s presence, but this no longer bothered him, instead he ran across the grass to the statue. This time there was no fear or shaking, and he threw his arms around the statue. As he did so, the statue seemed to melt in his arms and wrap itself around him, his mind seemed to expand and become one with everything in the universe, and then he found himself in full control of the man’s body. The man hadn’t shown any fear and Adam hadn’t felt the slightest resistance.

  Dawn had no doubt as to the reason for that. That flaring red flame showed that the man was making love to the woman, and in his state of sexual ecstasy his defences were down. She was reminded, once again, that sexual ecstasy and religious ecstasy and spirit possession all utilised the same pathways in the brain.

  Adam remained in possession of the man for only a few minutes, but in that time he was able to talk to the woman and pick flowers and throw stones and wander into the bush. He was eager to explore all the capabilities of those dexterous fingers and long legs and strong arms, but his visit was cut short by Eve, who had also climbed onto the island and was clamouring to take Adam’s place. He resisted at first, but then he opened the man’s mind to her. He was immediately
ejected, and found himself sitting on the island next to the statue while Eve took her turn at being a human. But he didn’t mind, for he had tasted what it was to walk and talk like a man, and what it was to use those amazing hands.

  Dawn felt the sorrow and frustration associated with that memory, because these simple pleasures were forever denied him. It touched her deeply, and she resolved to do everything in her power to help Adam and Eve and their offspring live out their essential humanity. She had no idea what that might involve or how she might achieve it, but she made up her mind: when she finished her education she would join the GeneSys dolphin project and devote herself to the dolphins’ welfare.

  It was only later that Dawn came to realise that this desire to help the dolphins had not arisen on a whim, nor was it born of her natural humanity. The instinct to nurture and guide whatever new intelligent species might be created on this planet arose from something else entirely, something that had come from the stars. It had been implanted in her when she was just a speck in her mother’s womb, and it was manifesting itself now, along with the other peculiar symptoms of her alien origins, because two crucial signals had finally been received by a tiny organ hidden deep within her brain. One signal was hormonal, and it indicated that her body had finally matured. The other signal was telepathic, and it indicated the presence of a new intelligence.

  Dawn was unaware of any of this as Adam’s recollections continued to race through her mind. She learned that shortly after handing over control of the man’s body to Eve he had woken up to find himself back in the dolphinarium, and a little after that Eve had awoken too. They told their human mentors about these extraordinary drug-induced experiences, and everything was recorded in the GeneSys computer system – as indeed was every keypress that they had ever made. Their mentors had shown some interest and had asked a few questions, but none of them imagined that these experiences were anything other than figments of their imaginations. There were no further drugged meals, and after a little while the subject was never raised again.

  But Adam never forgot, and he longed to become a man again, able to paint pictures and play music and grow flowers and gossip and do science and all the other wonderful things that humans did. The days and the weeks and the months passed, but his desire did not dim, and he dreamt that one day there would be a miracle, and a saviour would come who would restore to him his missing humanity. It seemed impossible, but that didn’t stop him dreaming, and whenever someone new visited the dolphinarium he tasted their telepathic aura, hoping they might be the one.

  And now, almost three years later, his saviour had finally arrived. A fresh memory of a girl walking up to the side of the pool flashed into Dawn’s mind, and she recognised herself immediately, not just from her appearance but from her emotional aura. Adam had been almost overwhelmed by it, and at first he had been completely bewildered.

  It was a complex aura, with several components. First there was her desire for Rick, unusually strong but not at all mystifying. Below it was a strange emotional undercurrent that Adam had never experienced before, and Dawn recognised the weird heat that had welled up within her. Finally, and most bewildering of all, was the sense of an enormously strong but dormant spiritual power lying deep within her. As he savoured this power, Adam’s bewilderment had turned to awe and wonder. He could tell that great changes were taking place in her maturing body and that soon this pent-up power would manifest itself. She’s a goddess, he had thought, this girl’s a goddess! She’s the one I’ve been waiting for!

  Dawn’s own reaction to these memories was a mixture of surprise and pleasure. She was surprised at Adam’s sense of awe, for it was just like the awe she’d felt when she’d gazed down at that golden altar, that sense of a divine presence. It showed that, along with his other human mental traits, Adam had inherited man’s religious instinct. And she felt pleasure because she really liked the idea of being a goddess. Not any old goddess, of course, for some goddesses were really gross with all kinds of weird features like snakes for hair, but rather a delectable love goddess. She didn’t actually believe in goddesses, for that was too ridiculous for words, but if Adam had sensed something goddess-like about her then there was every possibility that she had a goddess-like power to captivate Rick so that he would find her utterly irresistible…

  She suddenly realised that she could no longer feel Rick’s arms around her waist. Alarmed, she spun round in the water to see what was happening. Her body was laid on the concrete walkway beneath the awning, with Rick standing beside it, leaning on the rail.

  He glanced in her – Adam’s – direction, and their eyes met. Her heart leapt, and she flipped her tail in a kind of wave, but he didn’t wave back. He wouldn’t, of course, for he didn’t know that she’d taken charge of Adam’s body. It occurred to her to tell him by swimming up to him and getting him to stroke and pat her, but although that was tempting she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It would be altogether too flirty.

  Rick had obviously got fed up with supporting her unconscious body and had unceremoniously dumped it on the ground, and that probably meant that she would soon wake up – she supposed her body needed his warm touch to maintain its fires, and thus her out-of-body state. It was only later that it occurred to her that a simple solution would have been to swim over to that row of letters and tell him to jolly well pick her up again. But she didn’t think of that, and instead she decided to make the most of the time she had left by performing her first love-goddess trick: she would wow Rick with some amazing water acrobatics.

  It was quite the most exhilarating experience of her life. She started by simply rolling around in the water, testing her reflexes and making sure that she was able to control Adam’s body properly. She found she could, provided she didn’t try to think too hard about what she was doing. All of Adam’s instincts and learned skills were at her command, all she had to do was picture what she wanted and the action would automatically follow. It was a bit like riding a bike, she decided. If you really thought about what you were doing you would probably fall off, but if you didn’t it was dead easy.

  She whistled a warning to Eve, telling her to stay out of the way, and then she sped underwater to the far end of the pool. Before reaching it she threw herself high in the air, somersaulted over and over, then splashed back down, scattering water everywhere. She repeated this several times, performing more ambitious leaps each time, but then she became aware of the hard concrete of the poolside walkway beneath her prone body and the heavy breathing in her lungs and suddenly she was no longer thrusting through the water but blinking her eyes blearily at the dark awning above her head.

  “Wow! Wasn’t I great?” she murmured groggily, trying to sit up. Her body felt really stiff.

  Rick turned his head away from the pool and stared down questioningly at her.

  “All those acrobatics,” she explained. “In Adam’s body.”

  Rick frowned. “Adam often does that. He likes to show off.”

  “No, that was me! I went into him. I rode in him, just like I said I would.”

  He gave a sceptical grunt, then turned back to the dolphins.

  Feeling extremely aggrieved, she pushed herself to her feet and leaned against the rail. “Adam!” she called out. “That was me doing those turns, wasn’t it? I was inside you, wasn’t I?”

  Adam stared back at her, then nodded his beak vigorously up and down.

  Dawn flashed her eyes at Rick. “You see? It was me. You’ve got to believe me now!”

  Rick sighed. “OK, maybe it was you. But what do you expect me to do about it? If I started telling everyone that you’ve got some kind of supernatural power and that you’re able to take over dolphins, your father would go mad and I’d probably lose my job. Perhaps you should tell him!”

  Dawn thought about that. Rick certainly had a point. Her father would never believe her, and to convince him she would have to repeat the experiment and that would mean getting Rick to cuddle her. She could imagin
e what he would have to say about that.

  “Well, you could tell the people here that your dolphins can sense emotions telepathically.”

  He stared out silently across the pool, then his face softened and he glanced down at her. “All right,” he conceded, “I could do that. It doesn’t sound too outlandish, and it’s something that could easily be tested.”

  She smiled up at him gratefully. “Thanks, Rick. Once people accept that, they might be willing to accept the rest of it.”

  “Perhaps.”

  There was a faint buzz inside her head. She pressed a button on her wristpad, and the buzz was replaced by her father’s voice. “I’m almost finished, Dawn. Are you ready to go? It’s almost lunchtime.”

  Mention of lunch made her suddenly feel ravenously hungry. “Sure, Dad. See you at the entrance.”

  She pressed her wristpad again and cut the connection. Then she turned and waved goodbye to the dolphins. “I’ll be back soon,” she called out. “For another ride.” At that Adam leapt high into the air and performed a double somersault.

  “If that’s OK with you, Rick,” she added.

  He grunted. “Have I any choice?”

  “You could say no.”

  “And upset the dolphins – not to mention you, and therefore your father!”

  “Dad sometimes has his uses,” she agreed. “Same time next Sunday, then? When there’s no one else around.”

  She had hoped that now that Rick had softened a little, he might be pleased at the thought of seeing her again. But his eyes didn’t light up, and his only response was an acquiescent shrug. Greatly disappointed, she trailed after him in silence out of the dolphinarium.

  A couple of hours later, lunch over, Dawn retired to her bedroom to sleep off her jet lag. Sitting in front of the dressing table mirror, she inspected herself sadly. If Adam thought she was a goddess, he was sadly mistaken. No one could look less like a goddess. She’d always been too keen on her studies and books and other cerebral activities to be bothered about making herself attractive, and it certainly showed. She was wearing no makeup, not even a dab of lipstick, and her black hair was strewn carelessly about her shoulders. No wonder Rick wasn’t interested.

  But Dawn had a sunny outlook on life, and she told herself that this particular problem was easily solved. After all, she wasn’t a bad-looking girl. Indeed, according to her mother, she was actually very pretty (“I wish you’d put on something nice, dear, you would look so lovely”), so it shouldn’t be too difficult to attract some appreciative male glances. Sorting out her appearance would be next week’s project, she decided.

  Dawn was a great believer in projects and lists, and as she listed in her mind the various things she would have to do – shopping for makeup, buying some smart clothes and shoes, experimenting with perfumes, getting a glamorous hairdo, trying on earrings – she was struck by the enormity of the task. But instead of feeling daunted and rather bored by it, now the prospect of transforming herself into a stunning superdoll was suddenly rather exciting, and she felt once more that dragon-fire erupting in her belly. She was more than a little surprised at herself, and supposed her sudden interest in such things was because, for the first time in her life, she had fallen in love.

  But as she lay down on the bed and closed her weary eyes and prepared herself for sleep, she couldn’t help thinking that there must be more to it than that. So much had happened today that was utterly mystifying, and this desire to tart herself up, though superficially trivial, was yet another aspect of the profound changes that had come upon her. The extraordinarily strong attraction that she had felt for Rick, the waves of heat that had enveloped her, and that amazing spirit journey into Adam were all consequences of some weird mental and spiritual transfiguration, and it was inevitable that something as profound as that should result in some kind of physical transformation too. No love goddess worth her salt would want to look scruffy.

  Over lunch she’d told her family nothing about her strange experiences – she’d restricted herself to a mundane account of the way the dolphins communicated, the kind of education they’d received, and how good they were at performing in the water – but from the moment she’d left Rick she hadn’t stopped thinking about what had happened. Was she really a goddess? Had she really turned into a fire-breathing dragon? And the strong power that Adam sensed maturing within her, where had that come from? Everything that had happened today was at odds with everything she’d ever learned. It was totally incomprehensible.

  Abruptly, she sat bolt-upright in bed, her eyes wide open. At last the truth was beginning to dawn, and it was mind-blowing. Somehow she’d been genetically modified at conception, just like those dolphins, with parts of an alien genome spliced into hers. Now, some signal from her rapidly maturing body had switched on the rogue genes, and her alien nature was starting to appear. Falling in love had released the long-awaited hormone messengers!

  Was she really the human equivalent of those GM dolphins? It seemed insane, but it was surely not impossible, that a race of extraterrestrial dragon-like superbeings had tampered with her genes. It was the only thing she could think of that made any kind of sense. Just as Adam was a human mind trapped inside a dolphin body, so she was a dragon mind trapped in a human body. But this kind of meddling should show up in her DNA profile, and so far as she knew nothing odd had been found. Maybe the alien part of her genome was so unearthly that no human genetic test would ever detect it. It might even be non-physical, like her spirit body, and therefore not subject to the physical laws of genetics and inheritance.

  She lay back again on the bed, too exhausted to think sensibly any more. If some race of dragons from a far-off world were behind this, why had she been chosen? Was it because she was the offspring of someone high up in GeneSys, and therefore ideally placed to have influence over the development and destiny of new life forms? And if that was the case, why had they given her no clue as to her calling? Surely they wouldn’t expect her to stumble blindly towards some unfathomable goal, they must have left her some kind of message.

  But as she tried to work out what kind of message that would be, her thoughts became incoherent and in a little while she was sound asleep.

  Five

  Dawn didn’t spend the week shopping for makeup and perfume and new clothes as she’d intended, though she did have her hair done, and she had spent an hour or so in a couple of shops experimenting with different shades of lipstick and eyeliner. When she awoke from her Sunday afternoon sleep she’d immediately realised that she couldn’t possibly transform herself overnight into a paragon of female pulchritude. It wasn’t that it was physically impossible, it was just that it would raise far too many eyebrows and provoke too many awkward questions, especially from her father. Certainly they would want to know what she had been getting up to with that young man at the dolphinarium.

  And although she didn’t like to admit it to herself, there really wasn’t much point trying to win Rick’s heart. She and her family were staying in the Solomons for less than a fortnight, and then they were moving on to Fiji where there was another GeneSys research facility, and after that they would be returning to England, where she would finish her schooling and then go on to university. It would be many years before she could return here.

  But she had plenty of other things to think about. She visited a number of tourist spots with her family, including a pleasant lagoon lying several miles along the coast beyond the GeneSys site. The swimming there was very good, with a cluster of palm trees growing near the narrow strip of sand at the water’s edge providing some shade. They went there several times, and she would splash around with her brother and then she would lie in the water beneath those trees and fantasise about Rick. She would picture them coming here to swim and play together, and she imagined them afterwards walking arm in arm in the moonlight and finally kissing and cuddling, and always that strange unearthly warmth would return to her stomach, becoming hotter and hotter until it seemed that her in
sides would burst into flame.

  And all the while the mysterious force that had awoken within was extending its ghostly influence throughout her brain, making connections where none had been before. The only suspicion Dawn had that something odd was happening within was the occasional puzzled glance that her mother gave her. She thought at first that this was prompted by her sudden interest in her appearance, but as the week progressed she couldn’t help feeling that something within her had changed. She felt more self-assured, and on a couple of occasions she found herself being unusually assertive. She’d even stopped her dad in his tracks and got him to fork out for that expensive hairdo.

  But these subtle changes to her character were almost imperceptible, and she didn’t pay much attention to them. She was more interested in searching the internet, trying to find out all she could about spirit journeys, spirit possession, out-of-body experiences and the like, and in particular about dragons. Her own experiences were enough to convince her that the widespread belief in such creatures must have some foundation in fact. Maybe they had actually roamed the planet in the past, or maybe other people had been secretly tampered with by them, and their experiences had found their way into the mythology.

  There were, of course, no ‘facts’ about dragons on the internet, other than the offerings of some weird cultish sites. But there was plenty of information on the mythology of dragons. She discovered that belief in them was widespread, both in the eastern world and in the west, and that whereas in western mythology dragons were regarded as malevolent beings, in the east they were seen as a force for good, and they were often associated with fertility. When she’d made that discovery she felt like punching the air, for love and fertility went together, just like love and marriage, and that meant she really was a love goddess. I’m a love goddess, she wanted to shout, so Rick won’t be able to resist me!

  But what intrigued her most of all was the association between dragons and fire. In the Bible, dragons never had the power of fire, as they were regarded as evil, and fire was a God-given power. Even the fires of hell were appointed by God and not Satan, and any spiritual being with the power of fire was invariably divine. A fire-breathing dragon would therefore be seen as good, both in the east and the west.

  Her own weird experiences confirmed the benign nature of dragons. Never once had she had the sense that anything evil was involved. Indeed, apart from at times being extremely hot and uncomfortable, her experiences had all been positive. They had been stimulating and fulfilling and on the whole rather enjoyable. It would be true to say that she had taken to being a spirit as readily as a duck takes to water, and certainly without any fear or any sense of evil and foreboding.

  Being a dragon would not appeal to most people, of course, but as she researched the internet and pondered her experiences Dawn found herself becoming more and more excited by her bizarre nature. It was exciting to think that she had been born in the stars, and particularly exciting to suspect that she was probably the most powerful being on this planet. And it was very, very exciting to think that being a dragon meant that she was a love goddess as well. They were obviously two sides of the one celestial nature, the dragon representing her fiery, warlike aspect, and the love goddess represented her warm, loving aspect. Although she had never considered herself as fiery and warlike, or, for that matter, as particularly warm and loving, one couldn’t be in the god business without possessing both sets of attributes. Her religious studies lessons at school had made that very clear.

  What bothered her was the lack of any kind of message from whoever or whatever had modified her genes. The dolphins knew exactly what the humans who had tinkered with their genome intended for them – that they should multiply and fill the seas and harvest them – and it seemed only right that she should know what her progenitors had in mind. She was thrilled to have ultra-powerful transhuman abilities, especially if they allowed her to do exciting things like turning into an invincible fire-breathing dragon and performing dolphin acrobatics and becoming an irresistible love goddess, but it would be nice to have some kind of explanation. Even the tiniest hint of what was expected of her would be welcome. But there was nothing, at least nothing obvious. Not even an unusual dream or a small inner voice.

  And so she turned up at the GeneSys site the next Sunday morning feeling excited at what lay in store but also disappointed because she had made so little progress – apart from having her hair done and applying some lipstick and eyeliner. Much to her delight, Rick’s glances when he met her at the entrance told her that these small efforts had not been in vain, though the resulting eruption of fire and brimstone in her stomach was less welcome. She started to sweat profusely, and it occurred to her that unless she acted fast her eyeliner would be running in streaks down her face.

  Today, though, she was well prepared. She instantly focussed her thoughts on that dead rat she had seen by the roadside a couple of days ago, half-eaten and crawling with maggots. This ruse worked like a charm, for something like a flood of cold water seemed to pour into her stomach, transforming what was threatening to be a volcanic eruption of cosmic proportions into a damp squib.

  Dawn was greatly encouraged by this impressive victory over her insides, and as she and Rick made their way between the high GeneSys buildings to the dolphinarium she chatted happily and confidently about all the places she had visited and things she had done with her family that week.

  When they reached the pool, Adam and Eve performed a few welcoming somersaults, and then Adam surged eagerly up to her with Eve in tow. Dawn knelt down and made a great fuss of them, stroking their beaks and patting their heads, not bothering at all about getting splashed.

  “They’re really pleased to see you,” Rick observed with a chuckle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them make such a fuss of someone.”

  “I think they’re lovely. I’d really like to come here to work, one day.”

  At this Adam twisted away and raced round the pool, leaping high into the air and performing several more somersaults to show his delight.

  Rick laughed out loud. “Wow! You’ve certainly got an admirer. It must be your new hairdo!”

  She glanced up at him and smiled, pleased that he’d noticed. He smiled back, and then it took all her powers of concentration to fix her mind on that dead rat and prevent total meltdown. Stroking Eve’s dripping beak and patting her head helped, and the seething cauldron within subsided.

  She risked another glance at Rick. “I’d like to take a ride in him again.”

  “I’d guessed that.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. It’s up to you and Adam.”

  “Well, it must seem so crazy. It is crazy.”

  “I know. But the fact is… well, I’ve been talking to Adam, and he’s convinced me that you really did go into him last Sunday. So... I believe you. You’ve got some kind of weird power.”

  “Oh. Right.” She left off fussing Eve and stared up at him with delight. “The trouble is…” she stood up and looked away with embarrassment. “The trouble is, I only seem to be able to use this power when you’re around.”

  She blushed, but continued resolutely. “The thing is, Rick, you’ve set off something in me. It’s what made me faint last Sunday.”

  He struggled to keep a straight face. “I always have that effect on women,” he said with a careless wave. “Don’t worry about it.”

  She giggled. “I do worry about it. It means that if I’m to go into a trance, you’ve got to put your arms round me. And my Dad’s in one of those buildings opposite. He might even be watching us now, through those big windows.”

  Rick followed her gaze, and his jaw dropped. “Did he see us last week?”

  She shrugged. “If he did, he didn’t let on.”

  “I don’t think we can chance it again. Forget about riding in Adam, just stroke him instead.”

  “Don’t be silly! We can hide in your office, and you can cuddle me – I mean put your arms
round me – in there. I’ll still be able to get into Adam. Spirits can move around, you know, they can even go through walls.”

  He looked at her uncertainly. “If you’re happy with that. Me cuddling you, I mean. You hardly know me.”

  “I feel perfectly safe. When I’m in my trance I’ll be aware of everything that’s happening to my body, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to report anything untoward to my father.”

  He blushed. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything…”

  “I don’t mind you dreaming it, just don’t do it,” she told him firmly. “At least, not till we know each other better.” She turned and started towards his office. “Come on, I’ve only got an hour.”

  “You’re quite a girl, you know,” he muttered as he caught up with her. “You were a shy little thing last week, now all of a sudden you’ve grown up. I’ve never seen anyone change so quickly.”

  She gave him a sideways glance. “Do you mind?”

  “No, except you’re turning into a real bossy-boots. Anyone would think you were the master of the universe!”

  That stopped her in her tracks, and she stared at him in dismay. Those puzzled glances that her mother had given her came flooding back.

  “Rick! Have I changed that much? Something’s happening to me, and I don’t know what it is. I’m like those dolphins, part-human, part … something else. I’ve got alien genes in me, I’m sure I have.”

  Her look of anguish evidently affected him, and he touched her arm. “You look very human to me. Perhaps we’d better go inside, and you can tell me all about it.”

  Then he grinned and added: “Don’t worry about being a bossy-boots. That’s a universal female characteristic.”

  She couldn’t help smiling at that, and together they walked into his office and sat down in the easy chairs. And then everything tumbled out. She told him all that had happened inside Adam last Sunday, and what she’d discovered since then about spirit journeys and about dragons and their fire, and he listened quietly without scoffing or telling her she was nuts, or indeed interrupting at all. He listened so well, in fact, that by the end of it she was almost in tears.

  “I’ve felt so alone,” she whispered. “I couldn’t possibly tell Mum and Dad what’s happened, they’d think I’d gone mad, and the thought that I’ve been genetically modified by some monster from space is really frightening.”

  She hadn’t actually been particularly frightened, nor had she felt terribly alone, but talking to Rick somehow brought out these sentiments. It wasn’t that she was deliberately trying to deceive him, it was more that an evolutionary adaptation in the human female brain was going about its business of arousing the male protective instinct. It had the most gratifying effect, for he took her hands in his and assured her that he didn’t think she was at all crazy and that he believed she must indeed have been tampered with by some alien force. He went on to tell her that both Adam and Eve had been acting quite differently since her visit a week ago, that they were full of life and unusually playful, and that they had been pestering him to persuade her to work in the dolphinarium, just as soon as she finished her education.

  “That seems to be what’s intended for you,” he announced, still holding her hands. “You’ve got to work here, it’s your destiny. I think that’s why these changes in you are happening now. It’s not just me triggering them, it’s Adam and Eve as well.”

  Despite most of Dawn’s mental energies being deployed in an almighty battle to save her bowels from nuclear meltdown, she was able to see the flaw in his argument.

  “It couldn’t have been them,” she muttered, frantically trying to hold on to that dead-rat imagery. “They were as surprised by what happened as I was.”

  “They didn’t deliberately influence you, any more than I did. There’s something about them – maybe their telepathy – that you subconsciously picked up.”

  “But … but what if I’d never come here? Are you saying that I was destined to visit them?”

  “I think that whatever gave you your strange powers also gave you a strong desire to get to know them. It was something you couldn’t resist.”

  She thought carefully about that, and the molten lava swirling around her insides came off the boil. “You could be right. When Dad first told me about the dolphins, years ago, I knew I had to come here. It wasn’t because they were dolphins, it was because they had human minds. They could have been chimpanzees or anything else. I suppose I’ve been programmed to respond to the emergence of a new intelligence.”

  “Our universe is designed for life, that’s what some scientists say. Perhaps some cosmic force is promoting intelligent life everywhere, and it’s chosen you to look after the intelligent dolphins of Earth. Perhaps you’re their guardian angel.”

  “If you’re right, then every intelligent species in the universe must have its guardian angel,” she replied thoughtfully. “Though they’re dragons, not angels.”

  He shrugged. “Dragons or angels, what’s the difference? They’ve both got wings.”

  She smiled. “Isn’t this weird? Us talking about guardian angels and dragons as though they’re real? It’s almost like we’re in the middle of a crazy dream.”

  “Maybe we are crazy. Maybe there’s a much simpler explanation for all this that doesn’t involve alien intelligences or dragons or anything like that. Maybe it’s just a combination of telepathy and your over-the-top imagination.”

  “You could be right,” she sighed. “I haven’t had any messages or instructions about my mission. If this cosmic force really exists, you would have thought it would have managed to tell me something, to leave some kind of message.”

  He stood up and started to pace around the room. He looked deep in thought. “Are you sure they’ve left nothing. You can’t think of anything from your childhood that might be a message?”

  “I’ve spent most of the past week wondering about that. I can’t think of anything.”

  “But there must be something. What kind of message were you looking for? Something written across the sky?”

  “Don’t be silly. I was expecting a dream, or an inner voice, something like that.”

  He had paused by the window, and was staring out of it. “You’re the silly one,” he murmured. “I can’t imagine anything more unreliable than dreams or voices in the head. You might as well rely on horoscopes. Messages in the sky are much more trustworthy. Get one of those, and boy, you really sit up and take notice.”

  “Now you’re being really silly. There aren’t any messages like that.”

  “Yes there are.” He was still gazing at something through the window. “Look!”

  She jumped to her feet and joined him. He was staring at the company name, GeneSys, written in glowing red letters across the top of the administration block.

  “GeneSys? What kind of a message is that.”

  “Genesis,” he corrected her, “The name of the first book of the Bible.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “It’s the garden of Eden, all over again! Our two dolphins, they’re called Adam and Eve, and their task is to fill the seas and rule over them. You’re the dragon, which is like the serpent. Everything fits!”

  “Oh! I see! But the serpent was evil. That doesn’t fit at all.”

  “Don’t you get it? That’s the message! It’s warning you not to use the power you’ve been given for your own ends. That’s what the serpent did, and he was thrown out of heaven and his fire was taken away. Without that he wasn’t a real dragon, and although he could still cause a lot of trouble, in the end he was doomed.”

  She thought about that. It did all seem to fit, but it just had to be coincidence. No intelligence, however powerful, could have foreseen that events would turn out exactly like this and have organized that message accordingly. She said so to Rick.

  “I guess you’re right.” He sounded quite deflated. “That can’t possibly be the message. I was getting carried away.”
/>   “But I’m sure you’ve hit on something really important. I think that’s why the serpent in the Bible doesn’t have fire. He used it for his own ends instead of trying to help humans, and so it was taken away. I could do the same. I could try to rule the world instead of helping the dolphins, in which case I would really be in for it. So it is a message for me, even if it’s an accidental one. It’s telling me that I’m to be the dolphins’ guardian angel, that’s my destiny!”

  And then she added: “It was very ingenious of you, Rick, to link GeneSys and Adam and Eve and the dragon together like that. Very clever.”

  “I’ve got Adam to thank for that,” he confessed. “He’s always been fascinated by the story of Adam and Eve, and how everything about the dolphin project seemed to match what was in the Bible. He didn’t get the serpent bit, of course, because he didn’t know you’d turned into a dragon, but he said to me last week that having you here was a bit like having God walking in the Garden of Eden.”

  “Wow! That’s much nicer than comparing me to the serpent, which is what you did!”

  He smirked. “That seems a perfectly valid comparison to me. Women are wily, just like serpents. That’s as well as being bossy, of course.”

  “Huh! And men are horrid brutes! Now stop messing about and put your arms round me. Adam’s waiting for me to take him for a swim.”

  “Time for his walkies, is it? You’d better tell me how I’m supposed to cuddle you without sending your father berserk.”

  “Just make sure he doesn’t see us, that’s all. Wake me up in about half an hour – that’ll give us enough time before Dad tries to contact me. And you’d better lock the door, to make sure no one walks in.”

  “Good thinking.” He went over to it and turned the key. “Now what?” He looked at her expectantly.

  This was too good to be true. Her stomach was already gurgling warmly in anticipation, and she threw him a coy glance. “Well, I think it would be most comfortable for both of us if I sat on your lap.”

  “Yes. I suppose so.” He sat down in the other easy chair and gazed up at her.

  That warmth from her stomach had started to creep up her throat, and she was beginning to feel bloated. Dead rats were now the last thing on her mind, and trying hard not to blush she perched herself on his knee. He put tentative arms around her, and she sank into him, and now her heart was racing so fast and her internal fires had grown so fierce that she couldn’t help panting, which was most embarrassing.

  “It’s starting to work,” she gasped, hoping he would understand.

  He gave her a little squeeze, her insides exploded, and then everything about her seemed to explode as well. But then her vision cleared and she found herself floating near the ceiling, with everything looking grey and ghostly, and the inferno gripping her body just a distant sensation. She gazed down at her wraith-like self curled up asleep in Rick’s arms, and wondered if Rick minded cuddling such an unresponsive object.

  It occurred to her that if she flew into Rick’s brain she would discover what was going through his mind, and what his feelings were towards her. But then it struck her how affronted she would be if the situation was reversed and he started poking around in her mind. It would be the most awful invasion of privacy, and she would never forgive him.

  She resolved never to take advantage of her powers in that way. Going into Adam was quite different, as she wasn’t trying to take advantage, and in any case he had invited her in. And if she didn’t get a move on she would have hardly any time at all to get into him and practise those amazing dolphin acrobatics.

  She floated down to the floor and started walking towards the door. It might have been more sensible to glide towards it, but walking seemed more natural. Although the floor wasn’t carpeted it felt like thick wool, and it took her almost half a minute to cross it, and when she reached the door it seemed impossibly high and wide. As she’d discovered in her first such adventure a week ago, her spirit body was only 10 centimetres high.

  The door handle was far too high to reach, and even if she floated up to it she wouldn’t be able to exert any force on it to turn it, as she didn’t have any physical substance or mass. In any case, Rick had locked it. She already knew the solution, of course, from her experience of floating into Adam’s skull: she simply pressed herself against the door’s spongy surface and imagined herself on the other side. There was a slight blur as she passed through, and then she was standing on the poolside walkway.

  Although it was a bright sunny day, everything looked pale and indistinct, just as it had on her spirit journey last Sunday. She scanned the surface of the pool for any sign of Adam, but it was all a uniform grey. It would be impossible to distinguish him from the mass of water at a distance, and she mentally kicked herself for not agreeing a meeting spot with him before entering the spirit world. She peered in the direction of the screen on the opposite side of the pool, which was where she had found him on her spirit journey last Sunday. If he had any sense – and it seemed to her that he had a great deal of that – he would wait for her there.

  She leapt into the air and kicked her legs vigorously, just as if she were swimming, and although there was nothing to push against, her body shot forward. This was the technique she’d used before to reach Adam, and it reminded her of how he and Eve had soared high into the sky when they flapped their powerful tails during their spirit journey. It was all a matter of belief and expectation and a strong imagination, she supposed.

  In moments she had spotted Adam’s grey shape in the water, waiting for her where he had before. She dived towards his skull, and as she entered it there was blackness a feeling that she was floating in goo. Almost immediately the blackness lightened, and then she saw the cathedral of his mind take shape around her. Exactly as before, she was standing in the middle of the nave with those doorways to his memories spaced out along the walls, and there was the golden throne that was also an altar at the far end and the red flame flickering above it and the stained-glass window behind.

  The flame leapt higher as Adam sensed her presence, casting a reddish glow over the altar, and she was gripped by the urge to rush to it and embrace it. But she resisted its pull, and decided instead to try a little experiment. She wanted to see if she could turn herself into a dragon using her powers of concentration instead of allowing the altar to work its magic on her, which was what had happened before.

  Closing her eyes, she visualised her smooth human skin transmuting into the scaly armour-plating of a dragon, and her delicate fingernails into steely claws, and she pictured a huge tail with its vicious blade extending from the base of her spine. As the picture coalesced in her mind there was a spasm of pain across her shoulders and a wrenching about her hips, and when she opened her eyes she saw that she was tall and broad and standing on all fours, and her body was covered with hard red scales. At the same moment her dragon telepathy kicked in, and she became aware of Adam’s desire for her, and of his pleasure at her presence, and his excitement because she was about to possess him once more.

  Lifting her great head and opening her jaws, Dawn let out a mighty roar. As the sound reverberated around the cathedral, the flame above the altar responded by leaping high into the air, and the entire cathedral took on a rosy glow. As for the altar, that was now gleaming brightly, and the sight of it filled her with desire. The fires in her belly burst into life, and, far away, she felt her heart fluttering in her sleeping body and the warmth of Rick’s embrace. Flames and black smoke belched from her jaws, she emitted another ear-splitting roar, and then she was flailing her wings and hurtling headlong towards that most alluring of objects.

  Settling upon it, she was embraced by Adam’s welcoming presence, which was somehow all mingled with a sense of Rick’s embrace, and then there was that moment of blackness and a brief sensation of expanding to embrace all the stars of the universe, and then of falling back into the stained-glass window and finding herself in full possession of Adam’s body.

 
; On this occasion she felt no need to practise tentative movements in the water, instead she immediately flapped her tail and drove her amazing body through the water. She swam twice round the pool, and then proceeded to performing a series of astonishing somersaults, although there was no one but Eve to watch.

  A little later, her second great adventure in Adam at an end, she found herself back in her body, still nestled in Rick’s arms. She kept her eyes closed for a moment, suddenly embarrassed at this intimate situation and at a loss to know what to say. But she had to announce her return somehow, so opening her eyes she said simply: “Hi, I’m back!”

  “Thank goodness for that,” he grunted. “My legs have gone dead. You weigh a ton!”

  “I don’t!” she retorted, jumping up. “Anyway, Adam loves me, he can’t get enough of me. You should have seen how I rode him!”

  “I heard all the splashing. It sounded like a ton of bricks had hit the water. Whatever had got into him was mighty heavy!”

  Having a brother, she was used to such banter, and she laughed. He laughed too, and together they went outside to the dolphins. They frolicked in the water in front of them, evidently pleased to see them.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be back for another year,” Dawn called out. Although she was speaking to all three of them, her words were especially directed at Rick. “I’ve got to go back to England and school.”

  “There are schools here,” Rick pointed out.

  She smiled at him. “I might be the most powerful being on the planet, but I’m only 17 and my father would never allow it. He’s pretty strict.”

  “Zap him, then. Blast him to smithereens!”

  She giggled. “That’s precisely what I mustn’t do. Use my power for my own selfish ends.”

  Adam swam up to her and rested his dripping snout on the side of the pool, and she knelt down to stroke him. It didn’t feel particularly pleasurable, unlike stroking the soft fur of a cat or a dog, but Adam seemed to appreciate it.

  “He’s really going to miss you,” Rick remarked. “We’ll all have to be patient.”

  She hoped that Rick might add that he was going to really miss her too, but he didn’t. Instead he pulled a business card from his pocket.

  “Here’s my email address. Any emails from you I’ll display on that screen for Adam and Eve to read.”

  “I’ll write every week,” she promised, taking the card in her wet hands and slipping it into the pocket of her pouch.

  Just then there was a buzzing in her head. It was her father, calling to say that he was ready to go. Although she had only known them a short time, she felt close to tears as she said her farewells to Adam and Eve, and then she walked with Rick through the GeneSys site to the entrance.

  In a couple of days she and her family would leave this magical place and board their flight to Fiji. She longed to tell Rick that she was his love goddess as much as she was the dolphins’ guardian angel, but it would sound so soppy. Besides, she might come to regret it later, for although she was hopelessly in love with him, no woman could entirely trust her feelings, and in her case this was especially true. There was something in her that hadn’t been there before, tampering with her emotions, and she was still trying to get to grips with it. Only the passage of time would reveal if her feelings for Rick were genuine or whether they were just the product of some alien influence from the stars.

  As they reached the entrance Rick took her hand, and she turned to face him. “It’s a shame you can’t stay,” he said simply.

  She felt her heart surge, but this time there was no heat, just a dampness about the eyes. “I know,” she whispered. “But I’ll be back, I promise, and then we’ll really get to know each other.”

  Unable to trust herself any further, she quickly turned from him and hurried out to the waiting car.

  Six

  Dawn began working on her presentation as soon as she returned to England. She was always zealous about her schoolwork, but what was prompting her now was the desire to make a record of her amazing experiences before they faded from her memory. Already some of it was beginning to seem absurd, unreal even.

  She had thought of calling her presentation Adventures in a Parallel Universe, but she wasn’t altogether happy with that title, especially as hardly anyone believed in parallel universes any more. She settled instead on Adventures in Neurospace, ‘neurospace’ being the term she’d coined as a respectable alternative to ‘spirit world’. ‘Mindspace’ was another possibility, but that didn’t sound quite so scientific.

  In the end she changed her mind completely. At the last moment she had cold feet about sharing her amazing experiences and instead hastily put together a travelogue, illustrated with photos, about her family’s South Pacific holiday, for which she received only an average grade. She’d come to believe that all the stories of evil spirits and the powers of darkness must have some basis of truth, and therefore the less anyone knew about her strange powers the better. She didn’t want any inquisitive demons to come calling.

  She’d phoned Rick as soon as she’d reached that conclusion, to tell him not to divulge what had happened to anyone, not even his family. Although it was several weeks since she’d left the Solomons, and although they’d sent each other several emails, they’d not actually spoken, and this had provided her with an ideal excuse for a chat. To her delight he seemed equally pleased to talk to her, and he assured her that he hadn’t spoken to anyone about the matter.

  “They’d reckon I was nuts,” he said in his soft New Zealand accent. “Though I did suggest to the guys here that the dolphins might be able to detect emotions telepathically. You asked me to do that.”

  “I remember. So what did they say?”

  “It turned out that a couple of them had begun to suspect the same thing, and they’ve now decided to set up some tests.”

  “Rick! That’s great! But tell Adam to keep quiet about everything else. Tell him it’s really important that no one suspects there’s anything odd about me. If people found out that I’ve got alien powers…”

  “They’d probably lock you up and throw away the key. I think he’s worked that out for himself, Dawn. He asked me if I could erase all the records of what he told me about having you inside him from the system.”

  “He’s a smart boy. And could you erase them?”

  “’Fraid not, there’s too much security. In any case everything’s backed up, so I’d have to erase the backups too. We’ll just have to hope no one bothers to read it. There’s so much chatter between the dolphins and staff that anything important is likely to be swamped. It’s information overload here.”

  They continued chatting for a while, and they agreed that they would phone each other once a week, in spite of the 12-hour time difference. Early morning here was evening for him, and vice versa. He told her that the dolphins really liked to read her emails, especially if they included photos of what she was up to, and that she should continue with those.

  “Adam misses you,” he added. “We all miss you. You’ve got to come back.”

  Her heart leapt at that, and fond memories of Rick cuddling her in his office flooded through her. “I can’t wait!” she whispered.

  After they’d said their goodbyes she couldn’t stop pacing the room. Her heart was fluttering far too madly to allow her to sit down, and her stomach was playing up too, gurgling and rumbling as if great globs of lava were erupting from nowhere and splattering her insides. She had no doubt that, if she chose, she would be able to arouse herself to such state that her spirit would once more be able to leave her body and enter neurospace. The teenager in her really fancied that, as it would be a great adventure, but her fear of what lay out there restrained her. Evolution is an arms race, she reminded herself, and for creatures like dragons to have evolved they must have faced some seriously nasty competitors.

  And so she decided that the less she did to attract the attention of whatever demons inhabited neurospace the better. She wouldn’t go there
again until something occurred that actually demanded another visit.

  She didn’t have to wait long, just a couple of months. By then her appearance had been transformed from a slightly unkempt dowdiness to what might be described as schoolgirl glamour. In other words, within the limits of the school dress code she was as eye-catching as it was possible to be. Unfortunately the eyes that she had caught belonged to a gang of rather unsavoury boys from a nearby school.

  They each in turn tried to date her, but she spurned them all. Her heart was set on Rick, and these were meagre specimens in comparison. In the end, this continuing humiliation goaded Jake, their leader, to vow that he would personally sort her out and relieve her of her virginity.

  She normally walked home from school with Alice, a friend who lived a few doors away. The shortest route was via a footpath across a meadow and through a copse, and one day the four boys waylaid them, hiding behind some bushes in the copse. Two of them grabbed Alice and tied a scarf tightly round her mouth and threatened her with a knife to stop her yelling, while Jake and the fourth youth dragged Dawn behind the bushes and pulled her to the ground. The youth pinned her down by kneeling on her shoulders and gripping her arms, while Jake grabbed her legs and tried to force them apart.

  For a moment Dawn was paralysed by shock. She stared into Jake’s eyes and saw his lust, but instead of horror she felt only numbness. This wasn’t happening to her but to someone else, someone far away. But then the horror kicked in, and with it came anger at what was about to be perpetrated upon her by this despicable creature. The anger turned into rage, her cheeks turned a violent shade of crimson, and a firestorm exploded in her stomach.

  “Get off me now!” she hissed. “Or I’ll kill you!”

  Jake responded by slapping her face. “Shut up, bitch!”

  Hormones were now flooding through her body. Although they were quite different from those that Rick had aroused, they had the same effect: they ignited her alien nature. This time though she wasn’t a goddess of love, she was a goddess of war, and she would invade Jake.

  Past experience told her that invading someone’s mind was far from instantaneous, and by the time she had taken him over it might be too late. But it was her only hope, as both boys were large and she was no match for either of them, and in any case the hormones and the heat raging through her were now so intense that it was becoming difficult to hold on to her body.

  Dawn closed her eyes and let herself go. The weight of the youth on her shoulders and his grip on her arms and Jack’s manhandling of her legs faded from her consciousness, and she found herself floating a couple of metres above her limp body. She saw Jake hesitate, and as if from a great distance she heard the other boy exclaim: “We’ve knocked her out!”

  “That makes it easy, then,” she heard Jake say, and proceeded to pull off her pants.

  By now Dawn had transformed herself into a dragon. As she had discovered back at the dolphinarium, it was simply a matter of imagination. Now instead of hands she had razor-sharp claws, her smooth skin had become armour-plated scales, and a huge tail tipped with a vicious blade extended from the base of her spine. Although she was small, no more than a metre long she supposed, she was the top predator of the spirit world.

  With fire and angry black smoke belching from her jaws, and flapping her wings furiously, she hurled herself at Jake’s head. There was a moment of darkness as she entered his skull, and then the cathedral of his mind coalesced around her, with its stained-glass window straight ahead. Below the window was the golden altar, and on it a red candle with flames leaping so high they almost touched the ceiling. With scarcely a pause, she flapped her wings more, and with a blood-curdling snarl swooped upon the altar. Jake was too sexually aroused to offer any resistance, and she found herself exploding outwards to embrace the universe and then falling back to thrust his presence aside and take possession of his body.

  Alice, watching through terrified eyes, saw Jake shudder so violently that he almost keeled over. She thought for a moment that he had ejaculated prematurely, but then he stood up and she saw that this was not the case. Then, as he quickly pulled up his trousers, her attention was drawn to the strange expression on his face and the murderous glint in his eyes. They were like cold steel, and she watched aghast as the awful intelligence behind them laid into the gang in a brutal act of revenge.

  The boy kneeling on Dawn’s shoulders received a vicious kick straight to the face. The force of it threw him backwards, and he rolled on the ground screaming agony, his hands over his jaws and blood spilling everywhere. Jake was wearing heavy boots, and Alice feared he had broken his friend’s nose and probably most of his teeth.

  But Jake didn’t pause to look. He followed up that kick by leaping at the boy holding the knife to Alice, kicking him so hard in the stomach that he doubled up in agony, then smashing his fist into the side of his face. Before the boy had even hit the ground Jake had turned on the final youth, head butting him to the ground, then kicking him brutally while he screamed for mercy.

  Even more astonishing was what happened next. Jake pulled off his boots and all his clothes, then picked up the knife and slashed at each garment until they were in tatters. Then he deliberately plunged the knife into one of his own buttocks. Gasping in pain, he pulled it out and plunged it straight into the other. Blood spurted out and poured down his legs, and Jake had to lean against a tree to support himself, but somehow he managed to pull out the knife and throw it into the bushes.

  He turned to her, his face white with pain. “Don’t just stand there,” he rasped. “Wake Dawn up!”

  He was obviously in shock, and Alice stared at him speechlessly as he lurched unsteadily and completely naked towards the cow-trough at the edge of the copse, his buttocks and legs dripping with blood. Abruptly she came to her senses, and, pulling off the scarf that was still tied round her mouth, rushed over to her unconscious friend. At the edge of her vision Jake was climbing into the cow-trough.

  “Dawn! Wake up!” Alice wailed, shaking her friend’s shoulders. “Jake’s gone mad! He’s almost killed everyone. Please wake up, we’ve got to get away!”

  Dawn’s eyelids flickered, then they opened and she gave a small smile. Alice gasped with relief. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, slowly sitting up. “How about you?”

  “I’m okay, but look at what Jake’s done! He’s insane!”

  Dawn looked around. The three boys were still lying on the ground, bloodied and whimpering. As for Jake, he was trying to climb out of the trough, and he was shivering with cold and pain and the shock of his wounds.

  She pulled up her pants, which were still round her ankles, stood up, and adjusted her clothes. Alice helped her to brush herself off. By the time they had gathered up their things Jake was hobbling back to his pile of shredded clothes.

  “Jake!” Dawn called out to him. Jake stopped in his tracks and stared at them. He was a pathetic sight. He was naked, his arms were wrapped round his chest in a desperate attempt to warm himself, and he was shivering so much that his teeth were chattering. But what was even worse was the terror in his eyes as Dawn strode up to him.

  “If you interfere with Alice or me again,” she hissed, “I really will kill you. Do you understand?”

  The cowering wreck nodded dumbly. He was now shivering so much that Alice thought he would collapse.

  “And if you tell anyone about what happened to you, I’ll kill you. Do you understand that?”

  Again there was a shivering acquiescence.

  “Good. Now I suggest you and your despicable little friends get to hospital. Tell the nurses you got into a fight. That’s what happened, isn’t it? You got into a fight!”

  He nodded again, and Dawn turned on her heel and strode off. Alice hesitated, thinking she ought to do something to help Jake. He looked utterly broken, and she wondered what would happen to him when the other boys recovered and exacted their own revenge.

  “Have you got a
phone?” she asked. Jake glanced towards his clothes and nodded. “You’d better use it. Call your parents or something.”

  She hurried after Dawn. “What was all that about?” she gasped when she caught up.

  “I guess Jake’s conscience caught up with him. That’s why he turned on everyone. He thought he ought to protect us.”

  “So why did he nearly kill himself? And if he was protecting us, why did you tell him you would kill him next time?”

  Dawn looked at her blankly.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t!” Alice protested. “You thought I didn’t hear, ‘cos you were whispering, but I did hear. You were behind all that, weren’t you? You made him attack his friends.”

  “Don’t be silly. How could I? He’d knocked me unconscious.”

  But Alice wasn’t giving up. At last things were starting to make sense. “He only slapped you. I bet you went into some kind of trance so you could control him. It was some kind of mind control, wasn’t it? I read a story about that once.”

  Dawn whirled round to face her, and Alice saw gleaming in her eyes the same cold steel that had been in Jake. “Just forget it, Alice. It wasn’t anything to do with me, right?”

  Alice hesitated, and Dawn grabbed her arm, digging her fingers into it so hard it hurt. “Do you understand?”

  Alice blanched. “Yes, of course,” she mumbled, looking away. “You couldn’t have done it.”

  Dawn relaxed her grip and the steel left her eyes, and the two girls walked on in silence, Alice rubbing her arm. Glancing sideways at Dawn she wondered, not for the first time that term, what could have caused her to grow up so quickly. In the space of two or three months she had changed from a nondescript schoolgirl into an elegant, and suddenly rather intimidating, young woman. Whatever the cause, Alice felt very glad that Dawn was her friend and not her enemy.

  As for Dawn, she was thinking that she would have to be more circumspect about her appearance in future. The fact that she was a love goddess didn’t imply that she had to dress like one. At least, not when Rick wasn’t around to appreciate her.

  Nothing further untoward happened that term. She was in her final year at school and studying hard for her exams, and now that she had a definite aim in life, she was more determined than ever to do well and gain a place at a good university. The various learning goals she set herself made the months slip by, and soon Christmas was over and summer no longer seemed such a distant prospect.

  In the spring, however, her father dropped an awful bombshell. Over dinner one evening he told the family that they wouldn’t be going to the South Pacific this year after all, instead they would be visiting Kazakhstan, where GeneSys was establishing an important presence.

  Dawn stared at him in dismay, unable to believe her ears. Suddenly she burst into tears, and then she had a tantrum so childish that even she was surprised by it. However, the effect on the others was most gratifying. Her parents both gaped at her, and then her mother told her father in no uncertain terms how unfeeling he was because he knew very well how keen Dawn was to visit the Solomons and the dolphins again and just to come out with something like that as though it didn’t matter at all was just plain ridiculous.

  Her father was completely taken aback, and to keep the peace he promised that Dawn could go there the following year. She could go alone if necessary, since she would then be 18 and able to look after herself, and he would foot the bill. The prospect of spending two months alone with Rick cheered her up no end, and she dried her eyes and settled down to eat her dinner.

  “I really don’t understand why it’s so important to go there,” he grumbled.

  She blew her nose. “You know I want to study animal intelligence, and you know I can’t wait to get back to the dolphins. I’d like to work with them, you know I would.”

  “Not to mention the young men out there. I saw the way you were eyeing that guy you met at the dolphinarium.” He had drawn his own conclusions from the marked improvement in her appearance since then.

  “Rick? Oh, he’s okay. He emails me sometimes with news of the dolphins. Apparently they’re doing very well.”

  Her mother, who had also guessed that Dawn had fallen for Rick, quickly changed the subject. “How did you do on your last maths assignment, dear? The one you were having all that trouble with.”

  “I sorted it all out in the end, thanks. I got full marks.”

  Apart from her presentation, she had achieved top grades for all her assignments during the current academic year, which was why, she supposed, her father was willing to pay for her trip to the Solomons. The flight alone would cost him a couple of months’ salary, now that aviation fuel was so expensive.

  As things turned out, the trip to Kazakhstan was a blessing in disguise. They visited the Tienshan Mountains in the south of the country, staying in a remote grassy valley dotted with trees with a river flowing through it and a couple of lakes which were teeming with fish. It was a beautiful spot, yet deserted apart from a few other tourists and some locals who staffed the lodges.

  Dawn thought it magical, and as she walked alone along the shore of one of the lakes on their first afternoon there she couldn’t help thinking about that strange GeneSys message that Rick had dreamed up in his office all those months ago, that she and the dolphins were like the garden of Eden story played out all over again. For this pristine lake, full of fish and surrounded by mountains, was a kind of dolphin Eden. She could imagine Adam and Eve and their progeny living here and feeding on psychotropic fish, allowing their spirits to escape from their animal bodies to roam like humans over this idyllic countryside.

  Yet again she wondered about her mission to the dolphins. Almost a year had passed since leaving the Solomons, and nothing had shaken her love for them or her conviction that she was to be their guardian angel. Yet she still had no idea how to help them satisfy the deep-seated longings of their human brains, to be able to walk and talk like humans talk, and use those amazingly dexterous hands to mould the world around them.

  Shortly after leaving the Solomons she had listed all the facts about them that might have a bearing on this knotty problem, and now, in the bright afternoon sun in that remote valley in the Tienshan hills, she sat under a tree to read what she had written. She pulled a small cylindrical object from her pouch, about the size of a pencil, and unrolled it to reveal a flexible screen which she spoke into. Almost immediately what she was looking for was displayed across it.

  1Adam and Eve have human brains. So they’ve got human desires and human abilities, but since they don’t have human bodies they can’t achieve their potential.

  2They’ve used their spare mental capacity to develop telepathy.

  3Their telepathic powers allowed them to easily enter neurospace. It also enabled them to fuse their minds, so that they became a single entity with access to both their memories.

  4In neurospace they could turn themselves into humans as easily as I could turn myself into a dragon, when they climbed on that island, and they were able to possess a human being. That experience awoke deep yearnings in them to be human.

  As she read this list it occurred to her that the ability to fuse their minds in neurospace had profound implications for the next generation of GM dolphins. If hundreds of telepathic dolphins fused their minds in neurospace, the result would be an enormous merged mind able to access all of their combined knowledge. It would be as if all their brains had been wired together to become a superbrain.

  Dawn lay back under the tree and stared up at the canopy of leaves fluttering in the gentle breeze. Each dolphin mind would be like one of those leaves, she thought, merging together to form a single vast canopy. Would that be a good or bad thing? Would it have any value at all? After all, the whole of human knowledge was already instantly accessible over the internet, and this wouldn’t add anything to it.

  But then, as she sat up and gazed across the lake to the trees and the distant mountains, everything seemed to click into place and a glorious
vision unfolded. She saw that this fused mind, this communal mind, could be the key to creating a neurospace Eden in which the dolphins could live out their essential humanity. It was the most extraordinary flight of fancy, and it could only be realised when GeneSys had produced the next generation of GM dolphins from Adam and Eve’s DNA.

  Dawn picked up her screen and translated this leap of imagination into a sequence of logical propositions. After some later reworking, this is what she dictated:

  1If Adam and Eve are able to enter neurospace by eating those psychotropic fish, then so will their progeny.

  2If Adam and Eve are able to easily transform themselves into humans in neurospace, then so will their progeny.

  3If, by the miracle dolphin telepathy, Adam and Eve are able to merge into a single neurospace entity with access to both their intellects and memories, then so will their progeny. The result will be a vast communal mind with unknown but huge potential.

  4If two individuals are able cooperate in neurospace to create a cathedral-like representation of a single mind – which is what she and Adam did, and also what she and Jake did – and if Adam and Eve, acting as one, had been able to create that lagoon with the island and all the other things when they invaded a human mind, then the communal mind will be able to conjure up a similarly complex representation of the combined dolphin minds.

  5This neural representation conjured up by the communal mind won’t be a mere cathedral or lagoon, it will be the most wonderful place imaginable. It will be the Eden in which the dolphins would be able to live out their true humanity.

  Dawn decided she would test out some of these ideas on Adam and Eve when she returned to the Solomons next summer. She would feed them those psychotropic fish to send them into a trance, and then work with them in neurospace to create something like a house. If she and the dolphins worked out the design before entering neurospace and fixed it in their minds, then it should appear as if by magic, through the power of their imaginations alone. It was, after all, the power of her and Adam’s imaginations that had conjured up the cathedral with its golden altar.

  This house, like the cathedral, would have many rooms, and in those rooms would be stored their combined knowledge. Perhaps that knowledge might appear in books, like in a library, and their spirits, roaming through those rooms in human form, could access any of it. Many years in the future, when Adam and Eve’s progeny had grown up and ventured into neurospace, there would be many houses with a very large number of rooms, creating a vast library covering astronomy and biology and history and every other subject, and in this way a dolphin culture would develop. In their physical bodies each dolphin would hold only a tiny portion of this cultural wealth, but when they came together in neurospace all would be combined.

  As she sat alone under that tree in that remote valley in the Tienshan thinking through all this, there arose in Dawn’s mind a marvellous vision of a township from the time of Shakespeare’s England. It would emerge, fully formed, for just a few hours each day, after the dolphins had eaten their meal of psychotropic fish, and it would have narrow streets and tiny shops and small workshops where all manner of arts and crafts would be pursued, and rooms stacked high with shelves of books and pictures. The dolphins, having taken on human bodies, would wander everywhere, talking and singing and playing and making things just like real humans did, and in that way they would fulfil their deepest longings.

  As for the dolphin communal mind, it would have access to all the knowledge contained in all their individual minds, and its focus would be in the centre of the town, in a great cathedral with a magnificent golden altar. It would be here that the supermind would be interrogated like some Delphic oracle, perhaps by a high priest through whom it imparted its wisdom.

  Was it really possible, through the power of thought alone, to create such a paradise out of nothing? It really would be like playing at God. She thought through all the steps in her reasoning once again, and she could find no flaw. All that had happened to her, and everything that she had learned about the dolphins, pointed towards such an outcome.

  And yet it was such a fantastical, otherworldly vision, and she couldn’t help wondering at herself for conceiving it. Perhaps she hadn’t really conceived it at all, perhaps it had its origin in the otherworldly part of her brain that was responsible for all the other fantastical things that had happened to her. It was impossible to know which of her musings sprang from her ordinary human intelligence and which were born in the stars.

  She gazed across the grassy valley and pictured that Elizabethan township springing up all around her, and she thought again about that GeneSys message. It felt really weird that this great biotech organisation had adopted that name, and that the first two intelligent dolphins had been named Adam and Eve, and that here she was, their self-appointed guardian angel, drawing up plans for a dolphin Eden.

  Although her rational mind told her that nothing could be inferred from this choice of names, she couldn’t help thinking that it affirmed her great vision. And although it would be many years before this vision would come to pass, and it was unlikely that things would turn out exactly as she had imagined, the fact remained that she could now see clearly the path ahead, and she now understood just what these GM dolphins with their telepathic powers and ability to enter neurospace might accomplish.

  In the days ahead, as she turned these matters over in her mind, Dawn became ever more convinced that the creation of this dolphin Eden was her calling, and that she and the dolphins would change the world forever. It was impossible to predict how it would all turn out in the end, or what dangers and setbacks they might meet, but it was bound to be very exciting, especially with Rick around. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that what lay ahead would be the mother of all fairy tales.

  What she failed to see was that such a scheme was bound to attract fierce opposition, not only from humans but from demons as well. For now, though, there were no clouds to darken her horizon, and full of joy she jumped up and ran back through the trees to the lodge where the family was staying. She was about to embark on the most glorious adventure in the history of the planet!

  Seven

  That autumn Dawn started her undergraduate psychology course. Having gained a place at the university of her choice, she was now living away from home and free of its rules and regulations. Many of her fellow students threw themselves into wild parties and romantic affairs with reckless abandon, but she was too mindful of her uniqueness and cosmic mission for that. Besides, her heart was set on Rick.

  Her love-goddess skills, therefore, remained frustratingly untested. However, as autumn turned to winter, and winter to spring, their phone calls became increasingly flirty, and that prompted some delicious dreams. Unless she was very much mistaken, the day was fast approaching when those skills would not just be tested but worked off their feet.

  Their emails were much more businesslike, for they had a wider audience: Rick normally posted them on the dolphins’ poolside screen. Her emails were like a diary of her life, as she always made a point of telling them what she was up to and about the more interesting things she was learning on her course. For his part, Rick kept her posted on any developments at the dolphinarium. In one of his emails he summarised the results of the telepathy tests.

  These had established beyond all reasonable doubt that Adam and Eve could indeed detect human emotions, and, to Dawn’s surprise, some patchy images as well. They couldn’t detect images nearly as reliably as they could emotions, and even emotions couldn’t be detected consistently at a distance of more than 30 metres. However, if the dolphins concentrated their minds on a particular individual, even if he was many miles away, they could often detect his emotions and even a little of what he was seeing. In their report the researchers compared this to the hearing abilities of some animals: nearby sounds are easily picked up, but very distant ones will only be perceived if the animal pricks up its ears and points them in the right
direction.

  Rick told her that during their research the team had revisited the computer records of the dolphins’ out-of-body experiences following that experimental meal of psychotropic fish. Somewhat to Rick’s surprise, they didn’t give Adam and Eve’s accounts of what had happened any more credence than before, dismissing them as mere hallucinations. He had expected them to repeat the experiment, but the head of the dolphin project banned any further tests involving psychoactive drugs in case these harmed the dolphins, and Dawn said that this was just as well. She didn’t want anyone delving into experiences that might ultimately lead them to suspect that she too had some special abilities.

  A few weeks later Rick phoned to say that the research team had written a paper describing the tests and the results, and that it had been accepted for publication in a prestigious scientific journal. Dawn didn’t know whether to be pleased or alarmed by that, as she had visions of scientists from all over the world descending on the dolphinarium to ogle at Adam and Eve and to carry out their own tests.

  A couple of months later, when the report was finally published, there was indeed quite a splash in the media about the telepathic dolphins, accompanied by all kinds of wild assertions and scaremongering about their superhuman powers. However, when GeneSys and the rest of the scientific establishment emphasised that the dolphins’ telepathy was no more threatening than the ordinary human ability to detect emotional states from facial expressions, the furore quickly died down, to be replaced by other more pressing news. However, the possibility of telepathy was firmly established in the public mind, and psychic research, which had been in the doldrums for decades, was given a new lease of life.

  No sooner had the fuss about the dolphins’ telepathy abated than Rick announced further exciting news. He told her that the dolphins had reached sexual maturity, and that everyone was on tenterhooks waiting for a mating. Dawn understood how they felt, for the long-term survival of the dolphins depended on their ability to procreate naturally. But week followed week without Adam showing the slightest inclination in that direction, so that by the start of summer everyone had become quite disheartened. The fear was that GeneSys would abort the project.

  “Don’t worry,” Dawn told Rick over the phone. “Everything will be OK, I’ll sort Adam out.”

  He laughed. “The trouble is, Adam’s grown up with Eve. He treats her like a sister, so his human brain balks at the idea of mating with her. We’re thinking of encouraging him to be sexually active by introducing a female wild dolphin into the pool. ”

  “Please don’t do that! I know I’ll be able to sort it. End-of-year exams are only a month away, and I’ll take the first flight after that.”

  “OK, I’ll talk to my boss. She’ll take some convincing, though.”

  “Get Adam to tap out a message to her. Tell him to say that he loves me, and he’ll mate with Eve if I’m around.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Well, that should be good for a few jokes. That you’re Adam’s pin-up girl, I mean.”

  She bristled a little at that. “What about you? Aren’t I your pin-up?”

  “That’s the trouble,” he muttered. “I’ve got a picture of you pinned up in my office. The guys all tease me about that. You’re the non-existent fantasy woman who only lives in my dreams. If I tell them I’m sharing you with Adam…”

  Dawn giggled. “We’ll prove them wrong when I turn up. It’s not long now, and I’m going to make them very jealous of you.”

  The conversation degenerated into the usual sweet nothings, and then she asked him which picture of her adorned his office.

  “It’s one you sent from Kazakhstan. You’d bought a new swimsuit, and you wanted to show it off.”

  She remembered it well. That photograph – and indeed the purchase of the swimsuit – had been prompted by her recurring fantasy of lying on the beach with Rick. The thought that he fancied her in it filled her with a dangerously warm glow, and she hastily turned the conversation to other things. She didn’t want another eruption, not while she was on the phone.

  A month later her long wait was finally over and she was on her way to the Solomons. It wasn’t a direct flight – there weren’t any from London – instead she had to overnight at Fiji and then a take short-haul flight onwards, via a couple of stops in the New Hebrides. Fortunately she slept reasonably well at the airport hotel in Fiji, despite the time difference, and in spite of her mounting excitement. An hour away from Guadalcanal she took a tablet to ward off the residual jet lag, so that by the time they finally touched down at Henderson airport to the east of Honiara she was feeling pretty good.

  Indeed, to the cabin steward who followed her with his eyes as she walked out of the aircraft, she looked very good indeed. Just turned 19, Dawn was a tall, slim brunette, elegantly dressed in a smart black skirt and white top and new black shoes, and immaculately made up. Determined to look the love goddess on this long-awaited day, she had spent a while in the toilet on this last leg of her flight applying eye-liner and lipstick and perfume and making sure that not a single glossy hair of her glamorous hairdo was out of place.

  Rick had promised to meet her at the airport, and shortly after leaving the plane there was a buzzing from her wristpad and it was him, confirming that he was awaiting her in the airport lounge. He sounded like an eager schoolboy, which although very gratifying, did her elegant poise no good at all. Heat erupted in her stomach, her heart started to pound, and a thin film of perspiration formed on her brow. Soon she would be dripping with sweat, and her make-up and clothes and hair would be a total mess.

  In a panic she dredged up that old memory of the dead rat crawling with maggots. Now it was mixed with the memory of Jake’s face when he tried to rape her, and that was too unbearable for words. Sickened, she pushed the image away, but it had worked its magic: her belly had turned to ice.

  Feelings of revulsion lingered at the edge of her mind as she negotiated immigration control and baggage reclaim, and when she entered the aircraft lounge 15 minutes later she was a picture of cool chic.

  The place was crowded, mostly with the dark-skinned, curly-haired Melanesians who were the original inhabitants of these islands. Rick spotted her at once, and he leapt from his seat and bounded up to her.

  “Wow, you look terrific!” His eyes were shining, and he grabbed her hands. She gave him an excited smile, and parted her lips invitingly. She’d been waiting for this precious moment for ages. But instead of giving her a passionate hug and a scorching kiss, he contented himself with a quick peck on the cheek.

  “That’s not much of a kiss,” she protested. “Even my brother can do better than that!”

  She gazed longingly at him, hoping he’d take the hint, but instead he shuffled his feet and looked slightly embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react…”

  “Rick! Did you think I’d bite your head off or something?”

  That bantering look that she remembered from two years ago crossed his face. “As a matter of fact, I did. That’s exactly what dragons do, isn’t it?”

  Before she had time to reply he’d grabbed her luggage trolley and was pushing his way through the crowd. “It’s too busy in here. Come on, let’s get to the car.”

  He headed for the nearest exit, and she followed behind. To add to her chagrin, they had to push past another couple who were locked in a passionate embrace. All she’d got was the merest brush on the cheek, he hadn’t even brought her a bunch of flowers. She felt totally let down.

  They emerged into the blazing sunlight. “It’s over here,” he said, nodding towards a nearby parking lot. She was too upset to reply, and followed him to the car. What had become of all the laughing and giggling and flirtiness of their phone calls?

  A terrible thought struck her. He had fallen for someone else, someone he had recently met! That had to be it, it was the only possible explanation. Her mind went numb, and her stomach went cold. They reached the car, and she was too upset to notice that he had carefully clean
ed and polished it for her.

  He parked the trolley and opened the boot. Then he reached inside, and with an exaggerated flourish pulled out an enormous bunch of flowers. Looking very pleased with himself, he handed it to her.

  “Rick!” she gasped. “They’re lovely!

  “I couldn’t give it to you in the airport, not with all those people around. I wanted us to be alone. So that you could thank me properly.” That mischievous look had returned, and he put his hands on her waist and gently pulled her towards him.

  Her heart did a somersault and the ice in her stomach turned to steam. She wasn’t entirely reassured, though. “I thought you’d gone off me,” she complained. “You didn’t cuddle me even a little bit. I felt horrible.”

  “We couldn’t cuddle in there, not with all those people. Not properly, anyway.” He tugged more forcefully at her waist, drawing her close.

  “Don’t squash my flowers!” she squealed, holding them out of harm’s way. “They’re orchids, aren’t they?”

  “They certainly are. They cost me an arm and a leg, and you still haven’t thanked me.”

  “They’re wonderful, Rick, and I really appreciate them. It was very thoughtful of you.”

  “It was Meg’s idea,” he confessed. “She’s my boss. She said I couldn’t possibly not give you flowers, not when you’d waited so long.”

  “I’ll still thank you, but only a teeny little bit.” She didn’t know whether to be disappointed that he’d needed prompting or pleased because he’d been so honest. She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, just like that dutiful peck she’d received earlier.

  “Now we’re even!” she declared, pushing herself off him.

  “But you haven’t read the card,” he protested, pointing to the envelope tucked in among the blooms. “I wrote that myself.”

  “Ah. Maybe there’s hope for you then.” Visions of what he might have written flitted through her mind. Romantic promises of undying love, perhaps? Or something a little more steamy? The temperature of her stomach was beginning to soar and her pulse had begun to race. With eager fingers she pulled at the envelope.

  In her haste she managed to drop it, and they both bent down to retrieve it. Their bodies and their hands touched, and suddenly his arms were round her and she had dropped the orchids and they were gazing spellbound into each other’s eyes. Still holding on to each other, they stood upright, their bodies touching, and in a secret part of her brain that had its origin in the stars some synapses fired. Hormonal messengers flooded into her bloodstream, and all at once she was overwhelmed with desire.

  World War III exploded in her loins. Folding her arms around Rick’s neck she pressed herself to him. A tongue of invisible fire leapt up her throat, cascading into her mouth. As her hungry lips met his, something like electricity crackled between them, and she found herself engulfed in a scorching kiss. Not any old scorching kiss, not even a Hollywood-style scorching kiss, but an all-consuming, earth-moving, Oscar-winning, X-rated sizzler of a kiss.

  Her enchanted fire burst into Rick’s mouth and swept through his body, releasing a flood of testosterone and adrenaline and other potent hormones. Suddenly his hands were everywhere, clasping her to him in a frenzy of desire. He couldn’t get enough of her, squeezing her back and her waist to him and pawing at her bottom, and then his hands found their way beneath her top and were grasping her naked flesh. She certainly couldn’t complain about any lack of passion now!

  A wolf-whistle impinged on her consciousness. Several cat-calls and wolf-whistles, in fact. “Stop, Rick, stop!” she gasped, pulling her lips away. “Everyone’s watching us!”

  His passion immediately died down, and he glanced around. A number of people were standing by their cars watching the show, and a small cheer went up.

  Rick blushed. “Let’s get out of here,” he gasped, reaching for her luggage. Hastily adjusting her top, she picked up the orchids and scurried into the car. Moments later he jumped in beside her.

  They looked at each other in speechless embarrassment, and then she dissolved into a fit of giggles. “You look so guilty,” she explained, almost choking.

  “I feel terrible,” he muttered. “I couldn’t stop pawing at you. You must think I’m a wild animal.”

  “Of course I don’t,” she said, cuddling up to him. “Love goddesses adore that kind of thing. That’s why I kissed you like that. I wanted to turn you on.”

  He put his arm round her. “You certainly did that! Where on earth did you learn your technique? Not at your posh school, I bet.”

  “I didn’t learn it anywhere. It just happened. It’s part of my love-goddess suite of skills,” she told him proudly.

  “Suite of skills?” he echoed, gaping at her. “So what other skills…”

  “I expect we’ll find out,” she interjected, then hastily changed the subject. “I can’t wait to see Adam and Eve again. Come on, let’s get going.”

  “Don’t you want to check into your hotel?”

  “No, let’s go to GeneSys first.”

  He gave her a quizzical glance, then clicked his seatbelt and pressed a switch on the dashboard. “Destination GeneSys,” he announced, and the car started to move.

  Like most modern vehicles, Rick’s car was electric, and it rolled silently out of the car park and onto the highway that led along the coast to Honiara. Off to the right was the brilliant blue of the Pacific, to the left lay the bush-covered hills of Guadalcanal’s interior.

  He reached out and took her hand, leaving the car to drive itself along the highway. “You’ll never guess what crossed my mind when we were snogging back there.”

  She smiled. “I bet I can, you naughty boy.”

  “No, it wasn’t that. It seemed like your dragon-fire had somehow got into me, and I remembered what you told me about Jake and how you had turned into a dragon and got inside him and attacked him. I couldn’t help thinking that you might do the same thing to me if I carried on like that."

  “Oh Rick! I love you and I really enjoyed our cuddle. In any case, you gave me this lovely bunch of flowers, so I couldn’t possibly be cross with you.”

  He glanced sideways at her and that bantering look returned. “You goddesses are all the same. You’re all sweetness and light so long as you get plenty of sacrifices and lots of offerings of flowers and chocolates, otherwise it’s fire and brimstone all round!”

  “Think of it as investing in your future happiness,” she told him sunnily.

  “Huh! It sounds like you’re going to be a very expensive girlfriend.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that expensive. Goddesses like nothing better than a bit of worship and adoration, and that doesn’t cost anything at all!”

  “Worship and adoration? I’m no good at singing hymns, I’m afraid.”

  “I mean telling me how adorable I look, Silly! I went to a great deal of trouble to look nice for you, you know.”

  “You look absolutely stunning,” he said simply, and she could tell he meant it.

  A few minutes later they reached the outskirts of Honiara and were passing small concrete houses surrounded by banana trees, paw-paws, palm trees, and other tropical vegetation. Five minutes later the road, still running parallel to the coast, became the main thoroughfare through the town centre, with brightly-coloured flame trees spaced out along it. There were some large stores stocking the usual global brands, as well as lots of smaller shops selling local produce. There were many Melanesians wandering around, as well as some Gilbertese, who were the second largest ethnic group, together with the occasional westerner and several Chinese.

  After a little while they reached the western suburbs, and a few minutes after that they left the town and were driving through a coconut plantation. She could still glimpse the blue of the Pacific through the trees, just a couple of hundred metres to the right. And then Rick took over the controls and parked the car outside the perimeter wall of the GeneSys site, near the entrance gates.

  A c
ouple of burly Melanesians dressed in the dark green uniform of GeneSys Security were manning the entrance. They eyed her curiously as Rick led her into the small office, where a white female officer examined Dawn’s passport and issued her with a visitor’s pass.

  The officer leaned back in her chair and watched Dawn pin the pass to her top. A sardonic smile hovered on her lips. “So you’re Sweetie-Pie.”

  Dawn stared at her askance.

  “That’s what the guys at the dolphinarium call you,” the officer explained. “They reckon you’re a figment of Rick’s imagination, his ‘pie in the sky’. So it’s Sweetie-Pie, my dear.”

  Dawn glared at the woman, and then at Rick, who was looking quite shame-faced. Sweetie-Pie? How demeaning! She was one of the most powerful beings in the entire universe, dammit, not to mention the fact that she was the daughter of a top GeneSys manager. Your Majesty or Your Highness was a more appropriate form of address, certainly not Sweetie-Pie! And then she thought, if they joke about me, they won’t take me too seriously, and then no one will suspect the truth.

  Her glare softened and became a smile, and she cuddled up to Rick’s arm. “I really like being Rick’s sweetie-pie,” she announced demurely. “I hope you’re not jealous.”

  It was the officer’s turn to scowl. “Me? Of course not.”

  They walked out of the office hand-in-hand. Rick was looking very relieved. “You don’t mind being called that?”

  Dawn glanced up at the security cameras dotted around the walls of the high buildings to each side of them. “Can we be overheard?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

  She whispered her reasons for welcoming the name. “Just don’t call me that outside this place!”

  Dawn understood well enough the need for the high wall around the site and the guards at the entrance and the cameras and other security measures, and why GeneSys had located its research facilities in remote places like the Solomon Islands. Animal rights groups as well as some religious crackpots were deeply opposed to the fabrication of transgenic organisms, in spite of the proven benefits of the technology. Restrictions on air travel as well as the cost meant that it was difficult for these groups to mount protests in remote parts of the world, and the tight security minimised the possibility of physical attacks.

  It was approaching midday and the sun was blazing out of the cloudless sky, but fortunately the road between the buildings was lined with a variety of leafy trees and they were able to walk to the dolphinarium mainly in the shade. As they passed each building Rick tried to describe some of the research going on inside, but Dawn was too excited to pay much attention. After two long years of separation she was at last back with Rick and holding his hand and about to be reunited with her dolphins. Life with a capital L was about to begin.

  Adam and Eve’s welcome was every bit as rapturous as she had hoped. They must have sensed her presence on the site, for as soon as she appeared at the edge of the pool they kicked up a great commotion, leaping high in the air and rushing round in circles and splashing water everywhere. Then Adam raced up to her and lifted himself half out of the water, and she was on her knees laughing and stroking his beak and his head and getting herself soaked.

  Eventually Adam pulled away and she was free to stand up. Rick handed her a towel.

  “Yuk!” he teased. “You smell like rotten fish.”

  “No she doesn’t,” a female Australian voice retorted. Startled, Dawn turned and saw a small, wiry middle-aged woman wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

  “I’m Meg,” the woman said, holding out her hand for Dawn to shake. “And you don’t need to tell me who you are. I can see why Rick hasn’t looked at another woman for two years. We all thought he was nuts, but you’re well worth the wait. You’re gorgeous!”

  Dawn blushed, and not just because she was embarrassed. The delightful thought that Rick really had been true to all those intimate phone calls had ignited those dangerous fires, and now she had to struggle to keep her composure. Fortunately the dead-rat image had lost none of its potency, and in moments she had regained her poise.

  Meg didn’t seem to notice her rosy cheeks or the perspiration on her brow. “Come and meet everyone,” she said, taking Dawn’s arm.

  Other members of the team were gathering a short distance away, beneath the poolside awning, and Dawn realised that her presence had been signalled by the dolphins’ tumultuous greetings. There were eight people standing there, and they made a motley bunch. There were six men and two women, and half of them were white while the rest were Chinese (two), Indian (one), and a Melanesian.

  “Do you know what the guys here call you?” Meg asked her in a low voice.

  Dawn had no intention of letting a soppy nickname spoil what was turning out to be the best day of her life, and she smiled back. “Sweety-Pie? I think it’s rather quaint.”

  “You’re a good sport,” Meg muttered approvingly, and promptly pulled a small handset from the pocket of her shorts and pointed it at the screen on the opposite side of the pool. It burst into life with an animated display of fireworks spelling out in huge letters the name Sweetie-Pie, repeated over and over again in different colours and different sounds. Dawn managed to laugh with the rest of them, and Rick rewarded her by slipping his arm round her waist and giving her a squeeze.

  Rick had told her that his colleagues were all highly qualified, with most of them being PhD’s, and she feared that they might be rather stuffy. This wasn’t the case at all, and the fact that she had taken the silly computer display in good part went down well. They all gathered round and made a big fuss of her, and Meg brought out cans of beer and some nibbles from her office.

  “Alcohol’s not allowed on the premises,” she told Dawn, “but I managed to make this an exception. I persuaded the powers-that-be to classify it as an official reception.”

  Dawn didn’t know whether to be pleased or worried by that. She’d wanted to keep a low profile. “I didn’t think I was that important.”

  “You’re not. It’s because of your father.”

  After a while they split into small groups, and Dawn found herself talking to a rather dour Australian, Dr John Anderson. He was about 30, she guessed. Rick had already told her that he was the lead researcher in the telepathy experiments.

  “At last I get to meet you,” Dr Anderson said as they shook hands, peering through his spectacles at her as though she was some kind of biological specimen. “The amazing Dawn.”

  She gave him a sharp glance. “No one else finds me amazing. Apart from Rick, that is.”

  “The dolphins evidently think you are. All that fuss. And I think you’re amazing too. You spent no more than a couple of hours with them, two years ago, and in that tiny space of time you managed to discover what everyone else had missed - that they’re telepathic. That’s more than amazing, don’t you think? It’s miraculous.”

  His eyes glittered unnervingly at her, and the warm glow that had filled Dawn’s stomach froze over. He knew! Somehow he had stumbled upon the truth about her!

  Lightning-fast, her brain listed the simple sequence of steps that must have led him to the inevitable conclusion. Rick had alerted the people here to the possibility that the dolphins might be telepathic, and everyone knew that Rick’s girlfriend had struck up some kind of relationship with the animals. All those emails from her, posted up on the giant computer screen, had told them that. This John Anderson had put two and two together and examined the computer records of her interactions with the dolphins two years ago and realised that something extraordinary was going on. He had read Adam’s message inviting her to ride in him, and having also read Adam’s account of his own incursion into the spirit world, Anderson would know exactly what that message meant. Certainly it couldn’t mean ride on him, as that would break his ribs and probably kill him.

  And so he had deduced that she had somehow entered Adam’s mind, and that meant that she could have learned all kinds of things about Adam, including the
fact that he was telepathic. And now she was standing in front of him completely dumbstruck, confirming, if any confirmation were needed, that his deductions were correct.

  She hastily tried to recover her composure. “The moment I met them I thought they might be telepathic,” she said, doing her best to sound casual. “They said I was hot, and I had been feeling very hot, and then they said some other things that seemed to fit. So I thought you people ought to do a bit of research. You must have found it fascinating to investigate something that seems so impossible. I couldn’t believe it when you hit the jackpot and came out with that amazing report. It made headlines round the world. You did brilliantly.”

  He gave a thin smile. “You’re being too modest. A great deal of credit goes to you. You meet these creatures on a couple of occasions two years ago, and they go completely haywire when you return today. We could hardly believe our eyes. You obviously made a quite extraordinary impact on them.”

  Her blood froze. How incredibly naïve she’d been not to realise that the dolphins’ frantic welcome would inevitably raise suspicions. She should have told Rick to warn them against any excessive displays.

  She gave an off-hand shrug. Somehow she had to brazen it out. “I think it’s because I’m Rick’s girlfriend. I gather they’re very attached to him.”

  “There’s no need to hide your light under a bushel,” he said softly, those piercing eyes never once leaving her face. They seemed to reach right inside her. “Why not admit that you have a strange rapport with them? Rick evidently believes so – he’s been insisting that you’ll be able to get Adam to mate with Eve, although all our efforts have failed.”

  She didn’t know how to respond to that, and that unnerving glint returned to his eyes. “I very much hope you won’t disappoint us, Dawn. A lot depends on your remarkable abilities.”

  Several of the others were glancing at her, and she glanced back at them nervously. She hoped they were merely sizing up Rick’s newly-arrived sweetie-pie. If Rick had been aware of anything more than idle curiosity about her, he would certainly have warned her, so this Dr Anderson must have kept his suspicions to himself. And although Anderson must have deduced that she had somehow been able to enter Adam’s mind, he couldn’t possibly know anything about her alien dragon nature.

  “You’re quite correct,” she told him brightly, deciding to make the best of it with another little lie. “I do seem to have some kind of paranormal rapport with Adam and Eve. I guess I’m psychic, ‘cos they seem to be able to connect with me telepathically. I can’t read their thoughts or anything like that, but there’s some kind of emotional linkage. They respond to my feelings. I’m hoping that if Rick and I get down to some serious kissing and cuddling in his office, then this will put Adam in the right mood for making whoopee with Eve.”

  Dr Anderson couldn’t help smirking at that. “That’s what you’re going to tell the others, is it? That you’re going to have to make love to Rick in order to get Adam to mate with Eve?”

  Dawn drew herself to her full height and flashed her eyes at him. “Yes,” she said firmly. “I am.”

  Eight

  It was a red-faced Rick who accompanied Dawn into his small office a few minutes later.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” she whispered as he closed the door behind them. “I had to make up that story about Adam responding telepathically to my emotional state. It was the only way to explain my influence over him.”

  Rick’s office was just as she remembered it, apart from the framed photo of herself in that slinky swimming costume hanging on the wall behind his desk. He sank into one of the two easy chairs as if he wished it would swallow him up. She couldn’t help laughing at the expression on his face, and he broke into a sheepish grin.

  “It’s that Dr Anderson’s fault,” she explained, collapsing into the chair opposite him. She recounted their conversation.

  “He knows I’m able to get into Adam’s mind, I’m certain of it, and the others are bound to suspect that something very weird is going on. I had to tell them something they could believe without revealing too much about me.”

  “That John is too clever by half,” Rick told her grimly. “And he’s very thorough. He’ll have gone through those computer records with a fine-toothed comb, you can bet your life on it.”

  “I’m not going to let him spoil our day,” Dawn announced, and to prove her point she jumped up and deposited herself on his lap, wriggling up against him in a provocative way and wrapping her arms about his neck. He slipped his arms around her waist and squeezed her gently.

  “I hope your colleagues don’t tease you too much about what I said,” she murmured, stroking his curly hair. “About you having to make love to me in order to get Adam to perform, I mean.”

  “They’ll certainly tease me if Adam doesn’t perform!”

  She giggled. “There’s no risk of that, my darling.”

  “I don’t know how you can be so sure,” he grumbled. “There can be all kinds of reasons why he won’t have it off with Eve. He’s a male, after all, with male hang-ups. How are you going to get round those?””

  It didn’t matter what hang-ups Adam had, for she would be taking over his body. Dawn had known that she would have to do this, ever since it had become clear that Adam wouldn’t mate of his own accord. To prepare herself for this, she had researched dolphin courtship rituals on the internet, and she hoped that if she followed those assiduously then his body’s instincts would take over and she would be able to couple with Eve. She hadn’t told Rick any of this, for nice girls didn’t do that kind of thing, at least not in the bodies of male animals.

  “Well?” Rick demanded. “You’re a woman, dammit, so why in heaven’s name do you think you can get Adam to mate?”

  “Because I’m a love goddess, that’s why. Mating is what love goddesses do best.”

  He gawped at her, his face a picture of bemusement, but she simply smiled back and rested her head against his shoulder. “We ought to get started,” she murmured, hurriedly changing the subject. “Everyone’s waiting with baited breath. We don’t want Adam to disappoint them, do we?”

  He glanced around the bare office. “The floor’s very hard,” he said doubtfully. “Are you sure you want to make love here?”

  “Rick!” She jerked her head away from his and glared at him in mock anger. “We’re not actually going to make love! That was just a story to satisfy the others.”

  “But we’ve got to kiss and cuddle to send you on a spirit journey, and if you kiss me like you did before…”

  “I’m not going to kiss you like that,” she told him firmly. “That was a love-goddess kiss and they come from the stars, and they’re reserved for very special occasions.”

  He looked so crestfallen that she couldn’t help giggling, and she sank back into him again. This was a deliberate gesture of submission on her part, as her natural inclination was to cuddle his head against her shoulders. But she was very much aware that, in spite of her tender years, it was she who was calling all the shots, and her knowledge of psychology told her that this was no basis for a long-term relationship. She was bound to be dominant in some areas, for she had the stars in her blood, but she was determined in their love-making at least to let him take the lead. Or at any rate to let him think he was taking the lead.

  “Do you remember how we cuddled on this chair all those months and months ago?” she murmured. “I don’t know how many times I’ve got myself off to sleep by remembering how we snuggled up together here.” Actually, she had only replayed that particular scene a few times. Her favourite daydream was of them making love on the beach, but that was a private figment of her imagination that she’d never shared with him.

  Rick was stroking her back and her shoulders and kissing her hair. “That’s a coincidence. I often get to sleep that way too, imagining you in my arms.”

  This really is the best day of my life, she thought as she closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his neck
. He responded by cupping one of her breasts in his hand and gently squeezing it. She was wearing a thin cotton top, and the slight pressure of his fingers through the flimsy material was very pleasurable, and her passion started to rise. She’d never let anyone to touch her like that before, and that it should happen at the dolphinarium on this very special day seemed most auspicious.

  Suddenly, the fires in her stomach roared into life, forcing her to gasp for breath. It was embarrassing, and she hoped that Rick understood what was happening to her insides. He gave her a reassuring squeeze to tell her he did, and she squeezed him back and gasped some more. This seemed to fan the flames, so that they leapt high up her throat and into her mouth, filling with such a desire for him that she was sorely tempted to go back on what she’d said and deliver another of those red-hot love-goddess kisses. But this was not the time nor the place for that, and instead she released her soaring spirit from her body.

  She found herself floating above their two entwined bodies, just below the ceiling. Although it was almost two years since she had last done this, she felt quite at home in this strange disembodied state. She looked around at the eerie ghostliness of everything, and it didn’t bother her at all. I’ve been born for this, she told herself, I’m as much a dragon from neurospace as I am woman of Earth. And then she thought, why not turn myself into a dragon immediately, why wait until I get inside Adam? Why be a puny woman with nothing but bare fists to defend myself against whatever demons inhabit neurospace when I can be the most formidable mythological creature that has ever lived?

  And so she focused her imagination on her skin becoming hard and scaly, and her fingers transmuting into claws, and there was a sharp wrenching about her shoulders and pain across her hips and suddenly she was a dragon once more. With a quick glance over her awesome new body and a shake of her steel-tipped tail, she unfurled her great wings and with a blood-curdling roar flew straight through the wall of Rick’s office and out into the midday sun.

  Everything was a ghostly grey, and she remembered how difficult it had been to distinguish Adam’s tenuous body from the greyness of the water. As before, she had omitted to arrange a meeting place with him – though that was hardly surprising on this occasion, what with the embarrassment of that announcement she’d had to make to Rick’s colleagues and them splitting their sides with laughter.

  She flew to the same spot where she’d entered him all that time ago, beneath the large computer screen, and as before she found him patiently waiting there. Moments later she had drifted into his skull, everything was black and gooey, and then the cathedral of his mind was coalescing around her. Exactly as before, she found herself standing in the nave with the doorways to his memories spaced out along the walls, and the magnificent golden altar that was a throne at the end of the nave with the red flame flickering above, and behind it the stained-glass window showing the world through Adam’s eyes. He was gazing at Meg and Dr Anderson and the rest of Rick’s colleagues standing beneath the awning, and they were still chatting and drinking beer and occasionally glancing in Adam’s direction.

  The flame above the altar flickered more brightly as Adam sensed her presence, casting a rosy glow over everything, and she took to her wings again and swooped through the nave towards the golden altar. When she last did this, the flame above it had become a sheet of incandescence reaching up to the cathedral ceiling, but now it was no more than a few inches high. She fluttered over it uncertainly, and then settled upon the altar. It felt as hard as a rock, and there were no welcoming arms to receive her. She stared down at it in dismay, pressing one foot down on it and then another, but to no avail. Adam was rejecting her!

  She flapped her wings and hovered above it, completely at a loss. What was wrong? Why couldn’t she possess him? This close to the altar her dragon body could sense Adam’s emotional state very strongly, and the answer came to her immediately. He wasn’t aroused by her presence! Almost an hour had passed since that ecstatic greeting when he’d rushed madly round the pool and made a huge fuss of her, and now all his excitement and passion had died down, and instead there was a distinct sense of apprehension. Apprehension? It suddenly dawned on her that he must have overheard many of the comments that had been made at the poolside party, and realised that she was here to get him to mate.

  She landed a short distance from the altar, at the top of the flight of steps leading up to it, and wondered what on earth she was to do. If Adam wasn’t in a state of either religious or sexual ecstasy, then she wouldn’t be able to overcome his brain’s instinctive resistance to possession. She could of course return to her body and go outside and play with Adam and get him worked up again, but that was a clumsy and time-consuming solution to what should be a simple problem.

  It occurred to her that the fiction she’d told the others – that Adam was influenced by her emotional state – was actually correct. Not when she was in her body, perhaps, but at least here, when she was inside his skull. She remembered how, when she had entered him before, they had each fed off the other’s rising passion, until they were both in such a state of urgent desire that possession was easy. So if she aroused her own passion by imagining herself making love to Rick, then Adam would surely become aroused too.

  Replaying that fantasy of making love to Rick on the beach was almost second nature now. Her visual imagination, which had always been good, had improved markedly over the past couple of years, and she was able to paint a quite detailed picture. As the delicious imagery unfolded, she sensed her pulse quicken in her physical body, and at the same time she felt the flames in her dragon body erupt in her belly.

  Immediately, and just as she’d hoped, the flame above the altar responded by leaping higher. At the same time she became aware of Adam’s growing excitement, and moments after that the flame was half-way up the stained-glass window. Her ruse was working!

  And then, to her great surprise, the window flashed brightly, and suddenly her face was superimposed on Adam’s view of the world. And then she was watching herself lying naked in Rick’s arms and kissing him passionately. It was her fantasy, projected onto Adam’s mind!

  She watched in breathless fascination as the steamy scene unfolded on the big screen. At the same time she tried to work out how her most private thoughts had managed to plaster themselves all over Adam’s consciousness in such embarrassingly explicit detail. She supposed that Adam’s telepathy was picking up her imaginings and projecting them onto his own visual cortex, so that they were both sharing the same fantasy. She remembered that Dr Adamson’s research had shown that the dolphins’ telepathy could sometimes detect images, so perhaps what was happening wasn’t too surprising. It was even possible that Eve might be picking up the imagery as well, in which case she too might become aroused, which would make Dawn’s task very much easier.

  The air around the altar was now charged with sexual excitement. The flame was leaping right up to the cathedral ceiling, and her own insides were going critical, so much so that thick black smoke had begun belching from her nostrils. The desire for consummation gripped her, and with a roar and a flapping of wings she hurled herself into the air and dived into the altar, and this time those welcoming arms embraced her and she was sinking into them.

  It was a most delicious feeling, like sinking into Rick’s arms, and her mind expanded to fill the universe, to become one with all the galaxies and stars. Then she shrank back and became aware that water was lapping against her skin and that she was looking at the world through Adam’s eyes with her dolphin body gripped by his surging male passions.

  But it wasn’t the same as before, when she had possessed him two years ago. Then, he had slid into the background and handed over control of his body to her, so that she could use it as she pleased. Now she could feel his presence keenly, jostling with her, and a vivid image appeared of her clinging to Adam’s back while he rushed through the water. He wanted her with him, but not controlling him. She projected puzzlement and confusion, and immediatel
y his mind revealed the answer. It was an answer that made her feel deeply uncomfortable.

  He made her feel his deep love for her. Not dolphin love, but human love. And after that he projected a feeling of jealousy, and at the same time showing her a picture of Rick. He had fallen in love with her, and now he was jealous of Rick!

  Dawn was filled with a great sadness. She was at least partly to blame for this most unfortunate situation, she realised, for she had made such a huge fuss of him, not just when she was with him in the flesh but when she sent all those affectionate emails. His natural fascination for her had grown, over the two years of their separation, into an obsessive desire. No wonder he had refused to mate with Eve, he was waiting for her!

  Adam must have sensed her sadness, for he now made her feel his joy and pleasure at her presence, and then he projected again that image of himself with her clinging to him, but this time he was not rushing through the water but mating with Eve. The implication was clear: he would mate with Eve if she was with him, sharing his love.

  She should have guessed that something like this might happen. It meant that she would have to accompany him on all his couplings with Eve, at least to begin with. Hopefully his natural dolphin instincts would eventually take over. Well, there was no point worrying over spilt milk, as her granny might say, she might as well bite the bullet and prepare Adam for intercourse.

  Once more she conjured up that steamy beach scene, and once more she felt Adam’s passions rise as the erotic imagery unfolded in embarrassingly explicit detail. Now, though, Rick had taken on a distinctly dolphin-like appearance, and she realised that Adam was overlaying the imagery with his own private fantasies. And then, before she had time to fully take in the unfortunate implications of this, the image disappeared and he was charging through the water towards Eve. His passions now fully aroused, and with Dawn sharing his love, he was intent on fulfilling the biological urges of his dolphin body. As he cavorted and splashed and circled around the female dolphin, his instincts took over, and he started twisting his belly towards her and brushing against her.

  Eve seemed confused at first and tried to retreat, but his advances became more insistent, and as well as that she must have sensed telepathically his strong desire, so that very soon his efforts paid off and she was rolling over and presenting her belly to him. Dawn also found Adam’s urgent desire quite overwhelming, and she was conscious of her own physical body growing warm and breathless in Rick’s arms as hormones flooded through it. Whether Adam felt this too she wasn’t sure, but something seemed to further inflame him, and he pressed his belly grindingly hard against Eve. She yielded to him, and moments later there was the most enormous rush of pleasure as he thrust himself into her and released his sperm.

  Dawn was filled with an enormous sense of satisfaction. She felt like holding a champagne party to celebrate, or even better to take over Adam’s body and race through the water and fly high into the air and swim round and round until he fell back with exhaustion. I’ve made a baby, she thought! I’ve actually made a dolphin pup, the first-born of this new breed of intelligent creatures! Perhaps I’m jumping the gun, ‘cos it’s hours and hours before Adam’s sperm reaches Eve’s egg, but if and when conception occurs the tiny embryo will be as much mine as it is Adam’s and Eve’s. Not genetically, of course, but emotionally.

  And then she thought how extraordinary it was that she should feel like this. Making babies was the last thing on her mind when she fantasised about making love to Rick. It occurred to her that perhaps she was picking up Adam’s emotions and interpreting them as her own, but somehow she didn’t think so. This feeling she had for that tiny new life was so strong that it had to come from within herself. In fact, it was so enormously strong that it couldn’t really be human at all but must have its origin in her alien nature.

  Two years ago this alien nature had responded to her natural female interest in Rick by making her fall in love with him. It was now clear that it was making her fall in love with Adam’s offspring as well, not romantically of course, but maternally. She could understand falling for Rick, as he was really scrumptious, but why was she falling for this little creature? But as she analysed her feelings more closely, she realised what it was that was drawing her to this little one.

  It was her awareness that this new life was infinitely precious. It was the first-born pup of the new generation of intelligent dolphins, and unlike the hundreds or even thousands of test-tube dolphins that GeneSys would now create, it was naturally-conceived. It was therefore their natural leader, the ruler of the species that would one day rule the seas.

  As she contemplated that, Dawn felt a strong urge within herself to visit Eve’s womb in a day or so to satisfy herself that this little one had indeed been conceived, and many times after that to check its progress and to bond with it telepathically. Later, after the pup was born, she would participate in its nurture and education, and later still they would together bring about the fulfilment of her great vision, conceived a year ago in that remote valley in the Tienshan mountains, to create a new Eden in neurospace. And as she turned all of that over in her mind, she was filled with a huge sense of tenderness and joy, and with that there arose within her a great desire to get back to Rick and shower him with kisses.

  Adam and Eve separated, and a huge cheer went up from the watching humans. It would tell Rick, inside his office, that her mission had been a success and that he could start waking her up. Adam twisted around in the water to face his audience, and Dawn saw everyone clapping and hugging each other. This was an important milestone, as it meant that the future of the project was secure, provided Eve conceived.

  With his passion sated, Adam was content to sink into the background and allow Dawn to take over his body. Much as she wanted to race madly around the pool, she knew it would be the height of foolishness. It would tell Dr Anderson that his suspicions were correct and that she must indeed have invaded Adam. And so she contented herself by nuzzling up to Eve and rubbing Adam’s body gently against hers, and Eve responded in the same way. Dawn very much hoped that this lesson in post-coital affection was not lost on Adam.

  She became aware that Rick was doing some gentle nuzzling of his own. He was shaking her, and she could hear his voice, seemingly a great way off, telling her to wake up. And then she was no longer lying in the water next to Eve but curled up on his lap being cuddled.

  “Mmm,” she said drowsily. “That’s nice.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. I’m feeling squashed and both my legs are dead.”

  “Huh! That’s exactly what you said before, you horrid thing.”

  “That was two years ago. You’re even heavier now.”

  “Adam’s much more romantic than you!” She was wide awake now, but still feeling post-coital, and Rick’s banter jarred. “He acted very affectionately towards Eve after making love to her. It was quite an object lesson!”

  He shifted his legs, trying to make himself comfortable beneath her. “So everything went swimmingly. I’m glad.”

  “I’m more than glad, I’m delighted. Your colleagues are too. You must have heard them cheering.”

  He nodded.

  “Rick! What’s the matter with you? I would have thought you’d be over the moon.”

  “I am, of course I’m pleased. It’s just that I’ve been thinking.”

  “Thinking? About what?”

  “About us.”

  The ice-cold feeling that she’d felt in Dr Adamson’s presence returned, and she stared at him in alarm. “What’s wrong, Rick? I know I’m a terrible bossy-boots, and I’ll try to stop being like that, I really will.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s, well, it’s all this love-goddessing of yours. 19-year-old girls should be sweet and innocent, but you’re able to go into male dolphins and get them to mate, you’re able to deliver ultra-sexy kisses that send men berserk, it’s like you’re some 30-year-old sex expert who’s slept with hundreds of men and learned all the trick
s of the trade. It’s not natural.”

  “Oh. I see. No, it’s not natural, not at all. But I haven’t learned any tricks, Rick, not one, and I haven’t slept with anyone at all. You believe that, don’t you?”

  He sighed. “You were certainly inexperienced two years ago. But you’ve grown up a lot since then. An awful lot.”

  “I’ve not had any relationships, though. Apart from with you, that is. All my love-goddessing, as you call it, has come from the stars. If I’d have realised it would make you unhappy, I would have kept quiet about it. I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I am pleased, of course. That love-goddess kiss of yours was terrific, and I’m really proud to have you as my girlfriend, I really am.” He sighed. “I suppose, to be truthful, you make me feel inadequate. I’m just an ordinary human being, and you’re this amazing cosmic superstar.”

  “Oh Rick! It’s you that’s the superstar! At least, you’re my superstar. I don’t know whether it’s chance or fate or the machinations of a race of galactic superbeings, but it seems to me that you were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time for me, just like that GeneSys message. You’re part of my destiny.”

  “Do you really think so? You don’t hanker after some handsome celebrity or millionaire businessman or anyone like that?”

  “Of course I don’t! Good grief, Rick, I’ve got the blood of the lords of the universe flowing through my veins, do you seriously imagine I care anything about silly baubles like that? If I wanted, I could invade a few business leaders’ minds and take them over and make myself rich beyond the dreams of avarice. You’re worth more than any of that to me, my darling. In fact, I think you’re really yummy.”

  “Oh. Do you really?” His face lightened, and a smile began playing around his lips. “That’s all right, then.”

  She said nothing, for there was nothing more to be said, and instead pulled his arm more tightly round her waist and cuddled up against him. He kissed her all over her face, like he had before, and squeezed her and stroked her in all the right places. She could hear the others outside, still celebrating her arrival and Adam’s successful mating, and she knew that they should join them. She didn’t say so, however, as she wanted Rick to take the lead whenever possible, and after a little while he gave her bottom a friendly pinch and said it was time to face the others.

  “I dread to think what they’re going to say,” he muttered.

  “I’ll tell them what a hero you are. Your reputation will go through the roof. You’ve saved the dolphin project!”

  “You reckon I deserve a promotion, do you?”

  “Definitely.”

  There was indeed a great cheer and a few coarse jokes when they emerged, and even Dr Anderson came over and shook her hand, though his eyes had that same unnerving, watchful look. However, the party was by now more or less over and after a few minutes people started drifting away.

  “It’s 2 o’clock,” Meg explained. “That’s when afternoon duties start.”

  Dawn yawned. She was feeling tired and very hungry. “I think I’d better check into my hotel.”

  “Rick’s exhausted you, has he?”

  “He’s quite a guy.”

  On their way to the hotel Dawn summoned up the courage to tell Rick about her exploits in Adam’s body. She was afraid he might be upset, but in fact he reacted quite positively, especially when she described her steamy beach fantasy and how it had been picked up telepathically by Adam.

  “Wow!” he exclaimed, licking his lips hungrily. The thought of cuddling her half-naked on the beach had evidently fired his imagination. “You really are a hot little number!”

  She gave him a demure smile. She wanted to encourage him, but on the other hand she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about her. She was a love goddess, not a sex goddess, and to emphasise the point she told him how profoundly maternal she’d felt. “I feel like I’m that tiny embryo’s mother. Not that I am a mother yet. It’ll be a few hours before fertilisation occurs.”

  He nodded. “And it’ll be a week or more before we can be sure that there is an embryo.”

  A week? That was an impossibly long time to wait. She was itching to visit that tiny speck of life. “I could make a trip into Eve’s womb tomorrow, but I don’t suppose I would be able to see anything. Even large objects in neurospace are quite indistinct.”

  “You could try. You must have been a tiny embryo in your mother’s womb when a dragon came to visit. You were probably just a fertilised egg. Somehow it must have been able to detect you.”

  Dawn had always shied away from contemplating the mystery of her own conception. It was bad enough imagining her parents having sex, but the thought that some monster from outer space had also been involved was really gross. “It must have happened without Mum or Dad knowing,” she said quietly.

  “There’s no reason why they should know, is there? Your father had a key position in GeneSys, that was enough to attract the aliens’ interest. All they had to do was infect you with their dragonness and wait for your alien nature to mature.”

  “You make them sound like parasites, implanting themselves in other species.”

  There was silence for a moment he took the car’s controls and cut though a tricky road junction. Then he shared a most profound insight. “I bet you’ll pass on your dragonness in exactly the same way. You say you want Adam and Eve’s offspring to be yours as well as theirs…”

  She gasped as the staggering implications of Rick’s words struck home. That was why her love-goddess nature had made her fall in love with that little one! And why she had such a strong desire to visit it in the womb! It was the first-born of the new generation and therefore destined to be its leader, and so the dragon in her wanted to make it a dragon too!

  “Heaven help me, Rick! I’m one of those parasites! That’s how my species has come to rule the universe, by secretly implanting ourselves in the offspring of key leaders of every intelligent species we encounter. We’re not limited by the speed of light or anything like that, ‘cos we can travel through neurospace, so we can reach the farthest stars. Nowhere’s safe from us!”

  “Is that such a bad thing? You reckon dragons are benign. I’m sure they benefit their hosts.” He glanced sideways at her and grinned. “I’m certainly looking forward to some eye-popping benefits!”

  His attempt to lighten her mood was wasted. “Benign parasites, that’s what we are,” she continued bitterly. “That’s why people like St George had to spend half their time rescuing maidens from dragons. To stop them being impregnated with dragon blood. We’re nothing but parasites.”

  He laughed. “Now you’re being silly. ‘Parasite’ is a totally inadequate description for a noble creature like you. Even ‘noble’ doesn’t do you justice. The most delicious creature that’s ever walked the planet is what I’d call you.”

  This time his encouragement hit home. Her spirits lifted immediately and she smiled back at him. “Thanks, Rick. That’s worth at least one love-goddess kiss.”

  “I can’t wait,” he declared, taking the wheel and accelerating through the traffic. “Adam’s had all the fun so far. It’s my turn now.”

  Nine

  Human love-making proved to be an altogether more complicated affair than dolphin coupling, and the results were less than satisfactory. Dawn had assumed that her love-goddess instincts, like Adam’s dolphin instincts, would kick in, and that everything would go swimmingly, but this proved not to be the case. Those instincts had evidently evolved to meet the needs of a wide variety of life forms and were not tuned to cope with the specifics of human physiology.

  After the initial love-goddess kiss, which was highly pleasurable and ignited Rick’s passions most effectively, the proceedings degenerated into some embarrassed groping and giggles, followed by a sharp pain as he penetrated her, and ended up with them rolling under a bush and getting covered in sand because they heard voices approaching. Making love on the beach wasn’t nearly as good as her ima
gination had cracked it up to be.

  Rick had pestered her for that promised love-goddess kiss as soon as they reached the privacy of her hotel bedroom, but she had refused. Her last meal had been breakfast on the plane, and after her adventures at the dolphinarium she was starving. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt so hungry. And besides, the effects of her jet-lag tablet had worn off and her body clock was insisting that it was well past her bedtime. But there was an even more important reason.

  Dawn had royal blood in her veins. She was born of the stars, she possessed awesome powers, and she had a momentous destiny. A cheap and easy lay she definitely was not. Delivering that love-goddess kiss now, in her hotel bedroom, would make her that. If Rick wanted her, he had to perform a most important task.

  “What task?” he asked in dismay. His expression was that of a medieval knight who had just been ordered to climb several mountains and cross the sea and slaughter an army of giants to win his lady’s love.

  “You’ve got to marry me,” she told him primly. “It’s total commitment or nothing. I’ve got very old-fashioned views.”

  A look of relief crossed his brow. “Right. No problem. Will you marry me, Dawn?”

  “Not if you ask me like that,” she replied petulantly. “You’ve got to do it properly. You’ve got to buy me an engagement ring and go down on your knee and ask me in the old-fashioned way. If you do that, then yes, I will.”

  He grabbed her and hugged her. Then he wanted to go shopping for the ring immediately, but she insisted on having lunch first, so they went down to the hotel restaurant, where he bought her a slap-meal. After working her way through her entire plateful and part of his as well, as well as sharing a bottle of wine with him, she felt so sleepy that she just had to get to bed – alone, she told him firmly. He kissed her very tenderly, then told her that he taken tomorrow off work and would pick her up at the hotel at 9 o’clock sharp in the morning for their momentous shopping exhibition.

  And so, after sleeping the rest of that day and most of the night, she was waiting for him refreshed and full of eager expectation when he called at the hotel the next morning. Arm in arm, they visited several shops, and eventually she chose the most beautiful ring. It was rather expensive, but he said she was worth every cent, and after he’d bought it she asked him if they could go to the beach, to that lagoon where she’d gone with her family two years ago. It would be most romantic if he proposed to her there.

  First, though, she wanted to visit the dolphinarium, to greet the two dolphins and tell them the happy news. She also wanted to let Eve know that she would be returning in spirit later on, to visit her womb and the new life that she hoped had germinated there. She had to interrupt one of the dolphins’ lessons, but she managed to pass on her message out of earshot of the tutor. Stroking Eve’s snout, she whispered that she should be ready to receive her spirit.

  It was about midday when they reached the lagoon, which turned out to be deserted. She had been hoping that this would be the case, for it was a weekday, and the lagoon, though pretty, was a half-hour drive from Honiara. They settled onto the warm golden sand in the shade of a palm tree, and there Rick proposed to her. She accepted, and he put the ring on her finger.

  Now properly betrothed, she told him that she couldn’t imagine a more fitting occasion for that promised love-goddess kiss. Even the wedding ceremony that would formalise their union wouldn’t be as fitting, for they could hardly indulge in such a kiss in front of all those uncles and aunts, not to mention both sets of parents. And so her unearthly fires had set their passions aflame, and after some frantic writhing they had ended up naked and covered in sand, their panting bodies entwined under a bush as some unexpected visitors walked by.

  When the voices had passed out of earshot, Rick, still breathless, pushed himself up on an elbow and gazed down at her. He was looking very pleased with himself. “That was great,” he whispered.

  “You were great. I think I’ve got a lot to learn.”

  “We’ve both got a lot to learn. Practice makes perfect, they say, so we need to practise every night.”

  It was lovely that he was so eager, but she couldn’t help feeling disappointed that their first time had been less than perfect. She confessed as much to him. “I thought it would all come naturally, without any practice at all. Like I said, mating is what love goddesses do best.”

  “Your kisses are unbelievable,” he assured her, glancing down at her naked body. “The rest of you is unbelievable too.”

  She smiled back at him, her confidence in herself somewhat restored. “Wait till you see me in my slinky swimsuit! Come on, I feel like a swim.”

  He looked out from under the bush to check that the coast was clear, then crawled out and retrieved their bag with their swimsuits. A little later, after frolicking in the water, they sat on the sand in the shade of a palm tree and ate their packed lunch. By this time she was so ravenously hungry that she finished off one of his sandwiches as well as all her own.

  She burped. Loudly.

  “Sounds like your dragon-fire’s at it again,” he murmured, wiping his hands in a tissue.

  She pressed herself against him. “How about it then? D’you fancy another love-goddess kiss?”

  He looked at her uncertainly. “More practice already? My passion’s exhausted, my love. It needs time to recuperate.”

  That set off a fit of giggles, and she cuddled up to him, her body shaking. “I meant just a kiss,” she managed at last.

  Pushing her down onto the sand, he leaned over her and gave her a quick kiss on the end of her nose. “Are we talking about that kind of kiss, or are we talking about one of your turbo-charged scorchers?”

  “One of my scorchers, of course.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Good grief, woman, that dragon-fire of yours is unquenchable. It must burn up loads of calories. No wonder you eat so much!”

  She stared up at him. He’d meant it as a joke, but it struck her that all the heat that her dragon self generated must burn up the calories.

  “Golly, I hadn’t thought of that. It means that if we make love every night I can eat loads of puddings. I hope there are some good restaurants in Honiara!”

  He groaned. “I knew you’d be expensive. Can’t you cook your own puddings? All my friends’ wives and girlfriends can cook. You must be brilliant at it. Just open your mouth and let rip with that oven-ready fire of yours.”

  “It doesn’t work, I’m afraid. I burn everything.”

  “You’re not a domestic goddess, then?”

  “’Fraid not. Just a love goddess.”

  He sighed. “Nobody’s perfect, I suppose.”

  “Marriage is a division of labour, surely you knew that. We’re a partnership. I make the fire, you cook the food to feed the fire.”

  “A partnership! Of course! I do the cooking, you do the eating. I earn the money, you spend it. I wash the car, you drive it. That’s the secret of marital bliss.”

  She pinched him on the bottom. “I bet I have to clean the toilet and wash your socks and tidy up after you!”

  “Women’s work and all that, you know.”

  “Hmm. Anyway, it’s time for that love-goddess kiss. I want you to send me into neurospace so I can visit Eve’s womb. To see my baby.”

  “Ah. It’s not to sate your unquenchable lust, then.”

  “No. I’ve decided that lust and beaches are best kept apart. It’s clean sheets in future, my darling.”

  And so, after another calorie-burning meeting of lips, she found herself a few minutes later floating above their ghostly bodies, with the sea and the sand and the luxuriant vegetation looking ghostly and washed-out too. Once more she transformed herself into a dragon, and flapping her wings headed east above the fuzzily indistinct shoreline back towards Honiara.

  Although she felt like she was speeding along, the ground beneath her was slipping past quite slowly, and she guessed that she couldn’t be doing more than 40 kilometres an hour. The t
rouble was, her dragon body was only about a metre long, so what seemed to her like an impressive turn of speed wasn’t really very fast at all. At this rate it would take her at least 20 minutes to reach her destination.

  There must be a solution to this problem, she told herself. If dragons can cross the vast distances between the stars, then they must be able to travel very fast indeed, many hundreds of times the speed of light. Normal physical constraints simply didn’t apply in neurospace. If only her dragon parent was here to answer such questions and train her!

  Perhaps the solution was simply to imagine herself larger. No doubt she could just as easily visualise herself as an oversize dragon as an ordinary one. Or perhaps, if she tried hard enough, she might be able to turn herself into an entirely different kind of creature, one that was light-weight and streamlined rather than built like a tank. If she got rid of her thick scales and those massive claws and that oversized tail…

  There was a searing pain in her belly. She gasped as her body instinctively reared and lashed out with its hind legs. One claw made contact with something hard and threw it off, and there was an ear-splitting shriek. A silvery disc-shaped object spun away, glinting in the ghostly sunlight and splattering blood.

  She caught only a brief glimpse of the creature, but that was enough to fill her with fear. It was the most hideous sight, a flying saucer that was a face with black holes for eyes and a leering mouth and bat-like wings. Its most awful feature was a long horn, projecting like a spear from the middle of the creature’s face and covered with blood – her blood.

  Another intense stab of pain lanced through her belly, and again her body reared and her legs lashed out. Once more her claws made contact with something hard, there was shriek, and a second silver demon was ripped from her and hurled away, its horn red with her blood.

  Dawn lowered her head and examined her wounds. There were two gashes in her belly, and blood was pouring out of them, spreading across her scales and trickling down her legs. It looked awful, though thankfully the pain was dying down. She supposed that her dragon body was suppressing it so that her brain could focus on a counter-attack.

  She reared her head angrily, and inside her ruptured belly her fires roared into life. As the heat and the pressure built, the pain returned, forcing her to dampen her fires. If she allowed the pressure to climb further it might split her wide open. That must be why those creatures had attacked her there, to disable her deadliest weapon. There was no time to wonder how they had acquired their knowledge about dragons or whether this ambush was anything more than a chance encounter, as already the two demons had righted themselves and had begun circling in readiness for another attack. They flew faster and faster, their wings whirring like a swarm of angry bees.

  A sudden chill swept over her, and with it came a sense of overwhelming evil. A great fear swept over her, prompted, she realised later, by the demons’ telepathy. She stared paralysed at those menacing horns, glinting in the sunlight and still dripping blood. Pictures of dying dragons she’d seen on the internet, slain by swords such as these, sprang into her mind. She couldn’t avoid the same fate, for it was impossible to repel a simultaneous attack from the two of them.

  In anguish she uttered a silent prayer to the dragon that had begotten her. Why have you abandoned me? Why did you not train me? She had no idea how to fight a battle like this, she’d never even used her fire in anger. Her only experience, such as it was, had been that fight with Jake and his gang, and then she’d been in a human body. All she could do now was rely on her dragon instincts.

  Suddenly the two demons were hurtling towards her, one from the left and the other from the right, horns down and aiming straight at her. She had to use her fire, it was her only hope. Somehow she had to hold her belly together to allow the pressure to build, but how could she do that?

  An idea hit her – whether it came from her human intelligence or her dragon instincts, she did not know – and she reached down to her wounds with her enormous front claws, clasped the shattered scales, and clamped them together. The pain was intense, as her claws had to penetrate her skin to get a good grip, but the rupture was sealed and the flow of blood staunched.

  The two demons were now almost upon her. Unconscious instincts took over, and she flapped her wings and twisted her body so that her head faced the one and her rear faced the other, simultaneously lashing out with her tail. All the while her fires were exploding within her, much hotter than ever before, so that her belly heaved and stretched under the pressure. But her improvised clamp held firm, and the searing inferno burst up her throat and into her jaws.

  There was a terrible shriek from behind, and at the edge of her vision she saw that the blade at the tip of her tail had sliced through the wing of one of the creatures, disabling it. That was her lucky break. Hope surged through her, and she aimed her jaws at the other demon and released a roaring jet of incandescence.

  A white-hot fireball engulfed the demon’s body. Its shrieks and howls reverberated through her brain as it tried desperately to spin away, but she kept her fire trained on it, never letting the blistering incandescence leave the flailing body. The creature writhed in agony, but in moments the screams had stopped and then all that was left were a few charred remains spinning lifelessly to the ground.

  She immediately cut off her fire and twisted round to see what had become of the other demon. She had to finish it off, otherwise it would tell others of its kind about her. But it was nowhere to be seen, neither in the air nor on the ground. She circled around, her eyes flicking everywhere, and then she spotted a glint of silver hiding beneath some ghostly vegetation.

  Still gripping her damaged belly, Dawn allowed her fires to erupt once more, then dived towards the creature. It must have sensed her, for again she felt strong emotions coming from it, no longer filling her with fear but appealing for mercy. Deaf to its pleadings, she allowed another bolt of that awful fire to explode from her jaws. The demon tried to scuttle away, but the flames wrapped themselves around it, and her brain was filled with a terrible screaming. It shrieked and howled as its body crackled and burned, and then there was silence and all that remained were a few blackened scraps and some acrid-smelling smoke rising from the ghostly undergrowth.

  Quenching her fire, Dawn hovered above the spot. Hugely elated because she had been able to overcome these demonic adversaries, she wanted to spend a few moments savouring her victory, and, more importantly, to contemplate the implications of that encounter. Where had those creatures come from? Was it from some kind of hell in the bowels of the earth, or had they too come from the stars? Their charred remains gave no clue.

  She was also curious to see if the plants or anything else in the real world had been burned. Gliding lower until she was just above the ghostly vegetation, she examined it closely, but there were no signs of fire-damage or any other indication of the great battle that raged above that spot. That was proof, in any were needed, that neurospace and the physical world were entirely separate domains, so that even her fire could not pass between them. Satisfied, she rose up again into the air and turned her attention to her wounds.

  What she couldn’t see, however, because the physical world was too ghostly and fuzzy to make out such details, were the tiny creatures scurrying through the undergrowth. They were not fighting or fleeing or searching for food, they were all desperately trying to mate. And if she had returned a few weeks later, she would have seen that the plants growing here had sprouted a wild profusion of flowers. For by directing her fire on this spot she had, in effect, delivered a love-goddess kiss.

  Had she seen all that, Dawn would have been most intrigued, for it confirmed that dragons were indeed bringers of fertility, as eastern cultures believed. Indeed, she had at one time wondered if she should think of herself as a fertility goddess rather than a love goddess, but that didn’t seem very appealing, and Rick wouldn’t have been able to boast about her to his mates to anything like the same extent. To be feted as a love go
ddess with amazing powers was one thing, to be joked about as the world’s top fertilizer was quite another.

  But such thoughts were far from Dawn’s mind as she fluttered above the trees, examining her wounds. They were quite ugly, but the blood had dried and she wasn’t in too much pain. She wondered briefly how it was that a spirit had blood, for that seemed utterly absurd. It was only much later that she came to realise that spirit blood was unique to dragons, and that it was the means by which the energy in her physical body was released into her spirit body to be transformed into fire.

  As the pain died down she became aware that her throat and her tongue and the roof of her mouth were quite sore, and it occurred to her that her dragon-fire must have reached a temperature that was at the limit of what even her amazing body could stand. Such a weapon gave her the edge over any opponent, however tough their skin, and she supposed that countless millennia of evolutionary adaptation must have gone into the fine tuning of her dragon physiology. Either that, or she had been superbly designed.

  In spite of these discomforts, she saw no reason to abandon her journey. If she wanted to impregnate that fertilised egg with her dragon nature, she had to reach it soon, before it divided. And so she pressed onwards, following the coast towards Honiara and the GeneSys site. She was now much more circumspect, keeping a wary eye open for any attackers, and after a little while she struck out over the sea, so that the coast with its dense vegetation and numerous hiding places was well to her right.

  However, there were no further attacks, and she gradually relaxed, though she couldn’t stop thinking about her brush with death. Although the battle had been brief, it had been terrifying and painful and very ferocious. Apart from a few creepy-crawlies, she’d never killed anything before, and certainly not with such ruthless ferocity, and she supposed that the memory of it would haunt her for many nights to come. But then she became aware of Rick’s warmth and his arms wrapped around her unconscious body, and that was very comforting. She could only feel it dimly, and it seemed a great way off, but she tried to let her mind dwell on it for the remainder of the journey.

  At last the GeneSys buildings rose up ghostly white before her. The sight filled her with excitement, and she forgot her wounds and sore throat and that vicious battle and the feeling of Rick cuddling her. She was about to visit Eve and discover if she was indeed making a baby. And if she found it, she would impregnate that little one with her dragon nature and so make it truly her own! Perhaps she ought to feel guilty, for it was Eve who would bring it to term and suckle it, but she didn’t feel the slightest remorse. She wasn’t actually depriving Eve of her offspring, any more than her dragon parent had deprived her mother and father.

  What worried her now was the thought that she might fail, either because she couldn’t find the egg, or, having found it, was unable to work out how to impregnate it with her dragonness. All she could do was trust those dragon instincts that had proved so effective in her battle with the demons.

  Soon she was hovering above the dolphinarium, and she spotted a dolphin lying in front of the giant screen, watching some programme or lesson, but the imagery was too indistinct to make out what the lesson was about. A little further away was a second dolphin, also evidently watching the lesson.

  Dawn swooped down to the shape nearest the screen. She’d warned Eve about this visit, so hopefully Adam had told her to wait at this spot. Being telepathic, whichever dolphin it was should sense her presence and make some kind of response. She fluttered close the creature’s head.

  The dark shape stirred. Then, waggling its tail and splashing its flippers, it turned over and arched its back, thrusting its belly upwards. The message was unmistakable: Eve was greeting her and inviting her into her womb! Without more ado, Dawn swooped down to the upthrust belly and dived into it.

  Everything went black, and she found herself engulfed in tenuous goo. It was not unlike the sensation she felt when she first drifted into Adam’s brain. Now, though, there was no need to construct a mental picture of a neural reality, instead her mission was to find a physical object, a single fertilised egg. But how on earth could she do that?

  She paused, mulling over the problem. It seemed like an impossible task. But then, to her surprise, she felt a sudden warmth in her belly. What had prompted that? Was it perhaps the maternal instincts of her dragon self, sensing her close proximity to the little one? It occurred to her that her dragon fire might be the answer she was seeking, for she could use it to illuminate her surroundings. Certainly it could do no harm to Eve’s physical body or to her fertilised egg.

  She could dimly feel Rick’s arms about her sleeping body, and she let her mind dwell on that, thinking it would arouse her fire. But then something told her that this was not the time nor the place for erotic love. It was her maternal instincts that should be aroused.

  And so she focussed her mind on the darling little pup that she would one day cuddle in her arms. Immediately the flickering embers in her bowels roared into life, and she felt a tongue of flame licking up her throat. On this occasion, though, there was no scorching heat, instead the flame was soft and caressing.

  How odd, she thought. A fire with no heat! It occurred to her that her maternal instincts must be at work, regulating the bodily functions of her dragon nature so as not to harm the little one. She had no evidence for this, and as she discovered later it was an entirely erroneous and sentimental deduction. What she didn’t know, but would soon find out, was that these gentle flames contained within them the neurospace equivalent of DNA.

  Tongues of cold fire flickered around Dawn’s jaws, casting a pink glow over everything. Now she could make out the ghostly outline of Eve’s skeleton stretching away from her, and nearby the blurred shapes of her stomach and intestines. It was rather like an X-ray image, though in three dimensions. Happily, she knew where Eve’s womb was located relative to her other organs, for she had made a detailed study of everything that was known about dolphins, and by using her legs like paddles she propelled herself through the goo until she reached a shape that she knew must be it. She pushed herself inside.

  Now she faced the hardest part, locating that microscopic egg. It would, she knew, be attached to the wall of the womb, and she peered this way and that through the gloom. It seemed hopeless, for she was surrounded by a pink fuzziness, with no discernible features at all.

  There was, of course, no way her dragon eyes could detect something as small as an egg, especially as everything in the physical world was such a ghostly blur. But if this was how dragons passed on their genes, there must be some way of locating it. The solution had to lie with that cool fire that was still flickering faintly around her jaws, she felt sure of that.

  She imagined herself fondling her precious little dolphin pup. Immediately the flames grew more intense, filling the womb with a faint pink light. Something glinted on the opposite wall, like a tiny star in the night sky, and she arched her head closer to examine it. The flames flickering about her jaws seemed to caress it, and it responded by sparkling more brightly. Dawn’s heart leapt within her: this had to be her little one!

  She let her flames caress it for a few moments, and then she let them die away so that all was dark. But the tiny speck continued to sparkle in the blackness, and something within her brain responded by filling her with joy. It was an alien instinct, she knew, telling her that she had reproduced her kind. This was her baby now!

  Dawn remained a few moments longer, watching over the twinkling point of light. It slowly dimmed as the energy it had gained from that caressing fire was expended and the alien DNA that it had inherited from Dawn mingled with that of Adam and Eve. No physical device could detect its alien genes, but this little one would have the power of fire, and it would grow up to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe. For, unlike Dawn, it would have its dragon parent to nurture and guide it.

  When all about her was dark, Dawn turned and swam out of the tenuous goo that was Eve’s body into the
tropical afternoon. Rising into the air, she hovered over Eve’s ghostly form, hoping she would sense the joy that filled her. For it would tell the dolphin that she had conceived.

  Eve responded by turning away from whatever it was she watching on the giant screen and performing several somersaults. For the first time Dawn noticed that there was a human – perhaps their tutor – standing nearby. She couldn’t imagine what he made of this sudden display. She would never enlighten him, and she knew the dolphins wouldn’t either, for to do so would reveal too many secrets.

  It was time to return to her body. She felt exhausted, doubtless because all that fire and brimstone had depleted her energy reserves, but she had no choice but to retrace her flight back along the coast. If Rick woke her up she wouldn’t have to bother, but she had no way of telling him that her mission was accomplished.

  She checked her wounded belly. There were two ghastly scars where those demons had ripped into her, but there was no bleeding and no pain. Her dragon body was evidently well able to heal itself. Satisfied, she rose into the sky and headed back the way she had come, flying over the sea as before, away from any dangers that might lurk in the tropical bush.

  As she flapped her tired wings, it occurred to her once again that it must be possible to fly really fast through neurospace, but she was too weary to put her mind to the problem. But she comforted herself with the thought that, in spite of her battle scars and her exhaustion, this had been a most excellent day, a day she would always remember. She’d got hitched to Rick, she’d made a baby, and she’d slaughtered some demons.

  Only one thing remained, and her joy would be complete. That frolic on the beach with Rick had been unworthy of a love goddess, and she wanted to give a proper demonstration of her powers. She’d waited two years for this, and she licked her dry lips in eager anticipation. Her sleeping human body, still nestled in Rick’s arms, seemed to respond, for she sensed her pulse quicken, and moments later her dragon body was fired with renewed energy. Now able to flap her wings vigorously, she couldn’t help wondering how many calories her journey back would consume, and how much cake and pudding she would have to consume to make up the deficit.

  Ten

  About half an hour later, after much tedious wing-flapping, she arrived back at the lagoon. Her unconscious body was still in Rick’s arms, lying in the shade of the coconut palm near the water’s edge. He was still gently stroking it, obeying her instructions to keep it in a state of mild arousal. Otherwise, she’d told him, she feared she wouldn’t be able to maintain her disembodied state long enough to complete her mission.

  Although Rick hadn’t objected to this little chore, it had seemed to him a very odd thing to have to do. She’d agreed that it was indeed odd, and said that it must be possible for her to remain in neurospace without such ministrations, it was just that she didn’t know how. With no one to teach her, there was so much she didn’t know about that strange state – including, now that she was back, how to wake herself up.

  One way of course would be to go into Rick’s mind and tell him that she was back, but she had sworn never to invade him like that, at least not without his permission. Much better to invade her own mind and somehow jolt it awake.

  It was not all difficult to slip into her own skull. The cathedral of her mind rose up as if by magic around her, with the altar and the stained-glass window facing her at the end of the nave. The window was in darkness, for her physical eyes were closed, but the flame above the altar was burning brightly, no doubt in response to Rick’s warm presence.

  Spaced out along the cathedral walls were the doorways to her memories. She was half-tempted to enter some of them, to revisit her past, but she was too tired to bother. That little adventure could await another day. All she wanted to do right now was to repossess her body and lie back in Rick’s arms and take a well-earned nap.

  She studied the golden altar at the end of the nave. This was the seat of her own consciousness, and presumably the only way to reclaim her body was to fly onto it. It was the only thing that made sense.

  And so she launched herself into the air once more and swooped between the high walls until she was above it, then sank easily into it, meeting no resistance at all. There would of course be no resistance, for there was only a void within, her spirit having left her body. A sudden, awful thought struck her: what if an alien spirit had invaded my body while I was away? There would be nothing to stop it possessing me!

  A nightmare scenario flashed through her mind. One of those silver demons, instead of attacking her spirit, had found her body, taken it over, and then grabbed a knife from the picnic bag and murdered Rick. Then, after examining her memories to find the worst thing it could do, it had driven Rick’s car back to GeneSys, attacked the dolphins, and then plunged the knife into Dawn’s own heart.

  This horrific vision was mercifully cut short by a sense of oneness with the universe as the altar swallowed her up, and then she found herself lying in Rick’s arms with the gentle waves lapping the sandy shore just a few metres away.

  She lay there, eyes closed, profoundly thankful that they were both safe. She shuddered at the thought of the risk she had taken by spending all that time away from her body. She decided that whenever she ventured into neurospace in the future, she would get Rick to tie her up. He would only release her when she was safely back and he was certain that she really was his Dawn and not some invading demon. Getting her to deliver one of those love-goddess kisses would be an infallible test.

  Opening her eyes, she gazed up at him. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be nodding off. That didn’t surprise her, as it had been quite a day. Her gaze drifted over the still water of the lagoon and the sandy shore and the palm fronds above her head above her head and the clear blue sky beyond, and the horror that had gripped her at the thought of those demons ebbed away.

  But then she became aware that her body was stiff, her mouth was horribly dry, and her throat felt like a burnt-out chimney. She ran her tongue over her parched lips, then touched Rick’s face with a finger.

  “I’m back,” she croaked.

  He opened an eye. “Hi. What happened?”

  “I slaughtered a couple of demons, I almost got killed, and I made a baby.”

  He yawned. “Beach parties often end up like that.”

  “Rick! I’m serious! Some demons did almost kill me! And I did find Eve’s embryo and I did put something of me into it! So please get me something to drink, I’m shattered and my mouth feels horrible. It must be all that fire I spat out on those demons.”

  He stared at her with a bemused look, then reached over for the picnic bag and poured out a glass of water. She really wanted a cup of tea or coffee, but they hadn’t brought any. She downed it, then asked for another.

  “You look quite pale,” he observed. “Are you OK?”

  She gulped down some more water. “I’m feeling much better, thanks. At least, my mouth feels much better. The rest of me feels exhausted. Utterly drained, in fact.”

  “That fire of yours must have got through loads of calories. If you carry on like this there won’t be anything of you left for me to cuddle!”

  “Rick! Be serious! Don’t you want to hear about all my adventures?”

  “Of course I do, if you feel up to it. You do look very pale, though.”

  She realised she was famished, and helped herself to a large slice of cake from the picnic bag. It went down very well. Then she told him all that had happened.

  He was greatly impressed, and asked many questions. And he was very pleased to learn that she intended to steer clear of neurospace, only venturing there if it was absolutely necessary.

  “That rules out any more of your little trysts with Adam,” he pointed out. “I’ll have you all to myself!”

  She gave a tired smile. “I hope he doesn’t get too jealous of you.”

  “I should damn well hope not! I’m the one that’s marrying you, not him! In any case, he’s dolphin. It’s ridicu
lous he feels the way he does about you. It’s not healthy.”

  “It’s not his fault. Perhaps he’ll get attached to Eve now. And to his little pup, when it arrives. Eve’s probably told him that she’s conceived. She seemed very excited when I let her know.”

  He grunted. “We’d better warn those dolphins not to let on that they know. About Eve being pregnant, I mean. Otherwise the guys might start asking awkward questions. Especially that John Anderson.”

  “Let’s drop by on our way home. I ought to see them again anyway, to thank Eve for being so cooperative.” She pushed herself off him and stood up. “I can’t wait to get back, Rick, back to the hotel. All I really want is a bath with a cup of tea.”

  “And lots of sticky cake, no doubt.” Suddenly he gasped. He was staring at her tummy. “Dawn!”

  “What? Is my swimsuit torn?”

  “No! Look!”

  She peered down at herself. To her horror, her stomach was disfigured with two vivid red gashes. She touched them gingerly, but the skin was intact, and there was no pain. There was no need for a doctor, but they looked awful.

  “Stigmata!” she exclaimed suddenly. “They’re stigmata! I’ve read about them on my psychology course. The brain makes them appear, but after a while they go away.”

  “Nothing serious, then? Thank God for that!”

  “People sometimes get them after a trauma. Those two demons ripping open my belly, that was pretty traumatic. I guess this is my brain’s way of coping with the memory.”

  “Better than having nightmares, I suppose.”

  “But they’re horrible!” she wailed. Her eyes filled with tears as she examined them. Her flawless body had been marred by evil. Those fond dreams of being an irresistible love goddess were in tatters, and she would never be able to wear that slinky swimsuit again. Her voice almost a whisper, she asked tearfully: “Do you mind terribly?”

  He pulled her back down onto the sand and hugged her. “Of course I don’t mind, you daft thing! Here, let me kiss it better!”

  With that he pushed his head down to her tummy and proceeded to cover the gashes with kisses, as if doing that would make them go away. The memory of that terrifying attack by the demons flooded back, but she stroked his hair and let him continue, for it seemed to her that there could be no better way of freeing herself of the trauma. Certainly his continued ardour was most reassuring, and her confidence in herself started to return.

  She was unusually quiet and pensive on the drive back to Honiara, and Rick asked if she was OK. Those horrible gashes, were still playing on her mind, making her feel defiled, but she didn’t want to tell him that. Instead she assured him that it was only tiredness and that she would feel much better after a bath and a cup of tea. However, she had perked up somewhat by the time they reached GeneSys and the dolphins, and was able to enjoy the great fuss they made of her. Away from human earshot, she was able to tell them not to let on that they knew about Eve’s pregnancy.

  At length they arrived back at her hotel and Dawn was able to relax in that hot bath, with that cup of tea. She made Rick leave the tea at the door, as she didn’t want him to see her naked body with those revolting blemishes. Afterwards, and much to Rick’s relief, for he was feeling quite worried about her, she announced that she was really, really hungry. He took her to a smart restaurant where they had a slap-up meal. Even the waiters seemed surprised by the size of her appetite, especially when she finished off Rick’s pudding as well as her own.

  “You ought to move in with me,” he told her over coffee. “There’s no point paying for that hotel room.”

  “You just want someone to clean your toilet.”

  “I’ve already got someone doing that.”

  “What? Who?”

  “A cleaning lady. Quite an old cleaning lady, actually. She does most of the apartments in the block.”

  “Ah. I don’t need to feel jealous, then.”

  “Depends if you like cleaning toilets. If that’s what turns you on, I’m quite prepared to sack her.”

  She reached out with one of her legs beneath the table and rubbed it against his ankle. “It’s clean sheets that turn me on. What’s your bed like, Rick?”

  “It’s OK. Actually, it’s a bit small for two of us.”

  “You think it’ll cramp my style?”

  “You won’t be able to roll around like you did under that bush, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Perhaps we’d better get a double bed, then.”

  “Good idea. We’ll buy one tomorrow.”

  She felt much better with the meal inside her and their living arrangements sorted out. She hadn’t wanted to remain at the hotel, but she didn’t feel it was her place to suggest that she move in with him. But she was also very tired, and she asked him to take her home.

  “Hotel home, not your apartment home. I need my beauty sleep.”

  And so a little later she got undressed in the bathroom and put on the new nightdress that she had bought for this occasion. It covered up those horrible gashes most effectively, but not too much else. Rick eyed her appreciatively, and then said that he was feeling tired too and could be join her. He pointed out that her hotel bed was very large and could easily accommodate the two of them. She smiled and said she didn’t mind at all, and he pulled off his clothes and put out the light and jumped in with her. They kissed and cuddled for a little while, but she was too exhausted for anything more, and in a little while she dropped off into a deep sleep.

  She awoke with a start in the middle of night. Nightmare visions of silver demons brandishing blood-stained swords were racing around her mind. They quickly faded, but she was left in a cold sweat. Rick stirred and touched her arm.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Just a bad dream. It was nothing.”

  He put his arms round her and began gently kissing her shoulders and then her throat, and then he moved his lips down to her breasts. The dream now quite forgotten, those dragon fires erupted within her and she was filled with an overwhelming desire for him. Gasping, she wriggled beneath him and pulled his head up to hers. Her lips found his, and her body prepared itself for that killer kiss.

  Heat exploded up her throat, bursting into her mouth and pouring over her lips. The invisible force swept into him, and she felt his body twitch as chemical messengers cascaded through his veins and into the pleasure centres of his brain. At once he was all over her, squeezing her with his hands and devouring her with his lips, and then, quite unable to hold himself back, he was into her and they were thrusting rhythmically together and she was gasping with pleasure. When her climax came it was a spasm of pure ecstasy, and as she sank back her human body felt as satisfied as her dragon body had earlier that day, when she had impregnated Eve’s egg. Her joy was complete.

  “Wow!” Rick exclaimed, gasping. He spoke for her too, and she squeezed his hand. This perfect act of love was the consummation of their relationship, and no words of hers could add to it. How odd, she thought, that I should feel such love for a human although I’m a dragon, and that I should feel such love for an unborn dolphin although I’m a human.

  Rick’s breathing grew deeper, and after a while he fell asleep. But her body clock, which was still out of sync, was going about its business of telling its owner that it was time to get up. She was bursting, not with desire for Rick, but with the need to go to the toilet, and she wanted another cup of tea. She ate a couple of biscuits as well, and then, with nothing else to do, she climbed back into bed.

  It was just after four in the morning. Their proximity to the equator meant that day and night each lasted about 12 hours, with daybreak at 6 am, so she had two hours to wait. She didn’t really mind, because so much had happened since her return to the Solomons and she wanted to spend some time alone to ponder and come to terms with it.

  She reflected how well everything had gone. There had been some very nasty moments, first with that John Anderson and then with the demons, and even Rick at one point had expressed
some doubts about their relationship. And it was a shame that Adam was so enamoured of her. The worst thing of all was that her marital bliss had been marred by those horrible stigmata and the prospect of more nightmares, but these were trifles compared to the magnitude of her victories. In any case, she wasn’t actually married yet, and by the time the wedding day arrived there was every chance that those stigmata would have disappeared.

  Her adventure was only just beginning, and she knew now that many battles lay ahead, both from the likes of John Anderson in this world and from demonic forces in the next. But there would be many awesome victories, and she would discover how to travel to the stars, and maybe the day would come when she would meet others of her kind.

  All that lay many years in the future. For now, she would concentrate on her relationship with Rick and with the dolphins, and also of course with Rick’s colleagues. Her affinity with the dolphins was apparent to everyone, and she felt sure they would offer her a job. As for her undergraduate psychology course, which she was only part way through, she was at a loss to know what to do about that. Somehow it didn’t seem important any more, though when her life here had settled down she might continue it over the internet.

  Her most immediate concern was the small matter of breaking the news of her engagement to her parents, and telling them that she wanted a very special wedding because Rick Goode was the man of her dreams and would Dad mind forking out for it. Once the wedding was out of the way she would concentrate on bringing up her dolphin baby and getting involved in the programme to bring up all the hundreds of test-tube dolphins that GeneSys would now produce from Adam and Eve’s DNA.

  Where were all those GM dolphins going to live? She supposed a huge artificial lagoon would have to be constructed somewhere along the coast. Who would be involved with their education? All kinds of experts from many disciplines would have to be brought in. Who should oversee the project? For sure it had to be her and Rick. She would do everything in her power to make that happen, if necessary by invading the decision-makers’ minds. For if she was to set up a programme to train those young dolphins in the technique of spirit journeys and guide them towards the establishment of a dolphin Eden in neurospace, then she had to control the project, and no human would stand in her way.

  It was almost a year since she had conceived this bold idea, while on holiday in the Tienshan Mountains. Now, lying in the darkness and on the brink of this great adventure, she rehearsed the logic behind it and the shape that it might take. One by one, she ticked off the points in her mind.

  If Adam and Eve could enter neurospace through eating psychotropic fish, then so can their offspring. If Adam and Eve could merge their minds in neurospace through the power of telepathy, then so can their offspring. If she was able to create a neurospace structure like a cathedral of the mind, and if Adam and Eve could also do this, then so can their offspring. If Adam and Eve were able to transform themselves into humans in neurospace, because neurally that was what they were, then so can their offspring.

  There would be many hundreds of those dolphin offspring, nurtured and trained by her. It was impossible to be sure of the kind of neurospace structure their combined minds might create, but she had envisaged an Elizabethan township inhabited by dolphins in human bodies and offering many opportunities to exercise their human abilities.

  It was also impossible to foresee the intellectual and spiritual potential of such a fusion of minds, but it would be very great. Though one thing she could now see very clearly, which she hadn’t seen before, was that this dolphin Eden would arouse much opposition, both from humans and demons.

  But she would be there to protect it, along with her equally powerful dolphin child, and together they would go forth and fight all the forces of evil that were ranged against it. Whether by evolution or design, their dragon bodies had been fitted for such a battle, and this was their destiny.

  Part 2: Eden

 

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