‘I Am You,’ each whispered to the other in wonderment.
Speechless, they looked at each other as they understood what made them unique.
Smiles spread across their faces as they realised that their mental connection was restored.
Memories of Space Wars and Dragon and Unicorn Riding were all logical. Through careful pairbonding over the millennia, very strong Uddîšû genes had been preserved and passed down to both of their parents. The twins’ own uniqueness had increased that strength. But to have such definite memories back to Auriga itself. Memories not encoded in their parent’s genes.
Open-mouthed, they stared at each other. Had they solved part of The Mystery, and why they were “identical” but very obviously a boy and a girl – gender in a fourth segment?
Realising there was little strength in his arms around her, Tullia cuddled him, rocking him gently. Seeing her twin’s energy field vibrating as powerfully as hers had done ever since arriving on Haven, she gave a little grunt of relief. So vibrating like that is normal for being in the third dimension.
Each eased their grip on the other and leant back to get a good look. Each was soaked in sweat and smeared with blood. As they moved, each saw the other’s muscles ripple and the sun’s rays turn each body into a host of tiny sparkling rainbows. Images tumbled through their shared minds.
He was standing on a landing shelf on the edge of the HomeSphere, lifting the exhausted Healer down from the back of her unicorn and carrying her to a RelaxCouch. She was bending over the Warrior’s wounded body, the six long fingers of each hand guiding the healing energies that spiralled from her forehead.
‘Oh, Kaigii,’ each murmured. ‘You do need looking after.’
They laughed, at each other, at themselves, at their laughter. No matter how much they competed and tried to best the other, one thing would never change: underneath it all they cared. They were Kaigii.
Something was wrong.
Tullia half thought she could see the rock through his body. ‘Don’t be daft. It’s the sun. Heat haze. That’s all. But where her arm curved around his shoulders, she saw faint grey markings. Through her arm!
Qwelby could faintly see the snow through her body. He lifted one of his arms. Looking at it he could just make out the shapes of trees – through his arm!
‘Logical,’ their Intuitions said. ‘You both are in two places at once.’
Looking at each other was confusing, there were four of them.
‘A NullPoint Bubble!!’ they exclaimed. ‘One of us to the other.’
‘I’m on Earth with good friends, the boy and a girl with the snowman. They want to meet you,’ Qwelby said.
‘I’m on Haven with the tribe of hunters. They will welcome you,’ Tullia replied.
‘The girl’s father is a scientist who will help us contact home.’
‘My tribe accepts me as coming from another planet and want to help us be together.’
‘Four days on this planet and I have been attacked three times…’
‘These people are like us. I think they’re descended from the Auriganii…’
*
Riddled with pain and feeling sick to her Kore, Xaala’s conscious mind was shouting at her. The rainbow was changing. The colours had grown stronger and brighter and now were coherently flowing in one direction. Through her feet, along her spine and out through her crown poured cascades of bright pinks and greens, shot through with violet and white. It was beautiful. She welcomed the sense of peace and the cessation of pain that awaited if only she would let herself go and be enwrapped in the feelings of…
NO!!!
With a wrench, she tore her mind free and thoughtsent: ‘Abominations connecting. STOP!!!’
*
‘YEEOOW!!’ the twins yelled as they were deluged by what felt like a river of icy cold water as a bolt of brilliant light shot between them. A great rent in the landscape opened, ripping between them. Qwelby was in the snow and Tullia on the hill, each looking at the other from a distance.
‘KAIGII!’ each yelled as they rose up and went to throw themselves across the widening gap. No Dragon. No Unicorn. Just a boy and a girl.
There was a blinding flash of light and a massive thunderclap that shook snow from the trees, rattled the loose rocks and threw Xaala half way across the room.
When their eyes cleared and the twins could see again: each was alone. They threw back their heads and screamed their despair to the multiverse. Each had the same sensation: that the Darkness had attacked them out of fear for the consequences of their being reunited. Each flicked to that special corner of their mind where the other lived. No pain! No strong contact, but no pain. Truly, once again, they were mentally connected.
As Xaala’s eyes cleared, she found herself lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. Instead of the usual soft pastel colours, it was splotched with a mixture of angry reds and mustards and shot through with streaks of black, as if there had been an explosion in the room.
CHAPTER 53
HEROES ALL
FINLAND
Qwelby was in shock and felt himself trembling all over. Earth was so violent. And now people from Vertazia? He wanted to be with Tullia. Their twinergy would give him the strength he desperately needed. He heard the scrunch of footsteps in the snow and sensed people kneeling. He turned and reached, not so much for Anita, but for the female energy. Except when they were very young and had been fighting, the twins always turned to each other for support. They were one. Kaigii.
Anita saw a totally black face. Where were his bright eyes? She felt her energy draining away.
Qwelby eased away from her.
‘Thank God!’ she said, as his eyes appeared in the dark. ‘I thought you’d gone blind,’ she added as she removed her white scarf and tenderly wrapped it around the several cuts on Qwelby’s neck.
‘That was Tullia?’ Hannu asked in a voice almost of disbelief.
Distraught at having been parted, Qwelby just nodded.
‘Wow, she’s…’ Some second sense stopped Hannu from saying what he was thinking as Anita voiced her own thought: ‘So beautiful.’
Feeling Qwelby’s intense need for Tullia took Anita back to the day she had felt that she was looking at Qwelby’s world through his twin’s eyes. Helping him into his shirt, half Anita, half Tullia, she brushed aside his fumbling hands, helped him into his cardigan, zipped that up and then into his coat and zipped that up. ‘You are so alike,’ she said in a quiet voice.
The scornful reply that started in Qwelby’s mind did not find its way to his mouth. He was picturing not his annoyingly bossy twin, but the brave and wounded young woman he had just been with, wondering what it all meant. Then it dawned on him. His friends had seen Tullia. It had not been a fantasy or an exaggerated deepstate! What more had they seen? He gripped Anita’s arm.
‘Don’t tell. Please. No-one. And Hannu, I tell you later,’ was what he tried to say as he forced the words out through teeth clenched from the burning pain in his throat.
‘I promise,’ Anita replied after a pause, feeling excited that she had grasped his meaning through his feelings, even if not too sure about the exact words. ‘And for Hannu. We won’t tell anyone.’
Qwelby gave her a crooked smile, happy that she had understood his mangled words.
‘There’s a man here. Says you’ve broken his leg,’ Hannu said in a tight voice from a short distance away. ‘He’s drunk!’
‘Oh. Ah. Yess,’ Qwelby said. ‘Dank oo,’ he said in a croak to Anita, before crawling on hands and knees to where Hannu was standing.
As Qwelby’s compiler stored several unknown words from his erstwhile captor, flagging them for later attention, he could see that the man was in a lot of pain, and the aura around his right knee was flaring bright
ly.
‘Hold shoulders. I heal,’ he croaked. He knelt down with the man’s leg between his own, putting his hands on either side of the broken kneecap, little flickers of green running through his sholder length hair as he focussed his energies.
Apart from continuing to mouth obscenities, Arttu did not resist. He was too drunk and in too much pain to try to stop what was happening to him. Besides which, it felt good.
Flashing lights of police cars and the wailing sirens dying away broke into Qwelby’s concentration. Panic flared within him. Can’t stop. Not Healer like Kaigii. Take longer.
Moments later he was aware of torchlight, then voices calling. He heard Anita and Hannu shout back.
Qwelby was petrified. He had had one escape. It was pushing his luck to hope for another. But he had broken the man’s knee. He had to heal it. Not just wanted to. Had to.
The lights came closer and swept across the scene.
‘What on earth?’ the sergeant exclaimed.
‘Man hurt. I heal,’ Qwelby said in a hoarse voice, keeping his head lowered and his hands either side of his attacker’s knee. He was aware that Anita was at his side, trying to shield him.
He sensed three policemen standing around, holding torches and looking at him. Their energies were different from anything he had ever experienced on Vertazia. He guessed they must be similar to the Persuaders, the nearest the Tazii had to any sort of police force who only operated in the Shakazii’s homelands. The word that came to mind was ‘Enforcer’. They had plenty of determination and were curious. When skiing, he had seen a policeman and had learnt that they carried guns. And they were used for killing. Glancing up, he saw each of these policemen had a gun.
He wanted to swallow but his mouth refused to cooperate. He was dribbling!
‘What was that noise and the light?’ Sjöström asked.
Qwelby couldn’t help it. He had to look at her. Strong concern, definite authority and a lot more curiosity than the others.
Unable to speak, he gripped Anita’s arm and looked at her pleadingly, before returning to his healing.
‘That man held him. He had a knife. It must have touched the laser pack,’ Anita explained, recalling what she had seen in the bright flash.
‘Are you three all right? Dr Keskinen asked, having accompanied the police and wanting to interrupt the sergeant’s questioning. ‘We came as soon as we heard what sounded like an explosion.’
Definitely a NullPoint Bubble, Qwelby confirmed to himself as he saw the sergeant’s feet moving around. He lowered his head even more, trying to brush away the dribble on the collar of his coat.
He felt a gloved hand under his chin, firmly lifting his head up. He closed his eyes, ostensibly against the torchlight, looked inside at his expanding panic and feverishly tried to push it back down into his belly before it erupted and his legs carried him away.
‘We must get you to the hospital,’ Sjöström said. ‘Your face needs treatment and blood is seeping through that bandage.’
‘NO!’ Qwelby exclaimed, glancing at her. ‘I heal good.’ His throat hurting less, he added strong conviction to his tone of voice and an image of him smiling, relaxed and unhurt.
‘It’s all right, sergeant. My wife will look after him,’ Keskinen said, reassured by Qwelby’s certainty and only too anxious for there to be as little official involvement as possible.
Sjöström knew she was in enough trouble for letting a group of children get involved in the night’s events, even though there was no way she could have prevented it. To have to report that one had been badly injured… nevertheless, she was an experienced police officer. She took a long look at the black stranger and realised that what she thought was blood was just a shadow on the silk scarf he was wearing.
But his eyes. She had only seen them briefly. They seemed to be larger than usual and … shining? Sjöström had never met a black person. She remembered her brother telling her of a film he had seen. Set in Africa, one white man had said to the other something like: “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.” So, it was true.
Healing finished, Qwelby had to move. He wanted to get away from the policewoman and her probing questions. But he was afraid that the very movement of getting up would free his panic and he would run away, be caught and taken away to be used in experiments.
‘Where does he come from?’ Sjöström asked.
‘From Czech,’ Anita answered from where she was kneeling by Qwelby. ‘My father’s helping him with some experiments.’ Realising that whilst that was true, it had not been the best thing to say, she hastily added: ‘His father’s a scientist.’
As Anita was answering, Qwelby made a ‘come here’ gesture to Hannu. He had been moved a few feet away by the two policemen who had come to stand by Arttu, and were now gazing at Qwelby. ‘Help. Hold. Hide,’ he said as Hannu reached him.
‘His family comes from Mongolia… originally,’ Hannu added as he bent down. Qwelby had dropped his pretence as he had reached out to his friend, and in the stark torchlight Qwelby’s dark and battered face resembled a character in a film Hannu had seen about Genghis Khan.
As Hannu helped him up, Qwelby tucked the damaged side of his face against his friend. He heard the sergeant’s soft footfalls as she walked around and again shone her torch on his face. He knew his eyes were twirling with lots of colours. He kept them firmly closed. He felt a touch on the shoulder.
‘Are you all right?’ Sjöström asked.
‘Yess, dank oo,’ Qwelby said slowly, trying his best to speak clearly out of his badly bruised mouth. ‘I good.’ He used his last drop of energy to put as much conviction into his tone of voice as possible. ‘Need sleep.’
The sergeant lowered her torch. A Mongolian. She had seen a film about Genghis Kahn. He had been very dark. Yes, she could see that. Kotomäki was a small town but not so large that Sjöström did not know everyone, she knew Dr Viljo Keskinen and that there were several scientists from different countries working at the Research Institute in Jyväskylä.
Qwelby was hanging on to Hannu, feeling outright panic welling up. His legs felt rubbery as though they were going to collapse. At the same time his emotions were telling them to run away. He heard the muffled sounds of the man he had hurt being helped to his feet. He felt Hannu’s heart beating, a throbbing pulse against the side of his hurting head. He was waiting for his hands to be seized, pulled behind his back and metal rings snapped on.
Time stood still.
He heard the sergeant move. The torchlight left his face. He tensed, waiting to be seized.
‘Right,’ Sjöström said briskly.
A stifled moan escaped Qwelby’s lips as he went rigid with fear.
‘You three take “Bear Man” to the station. I’ll meet you there,’ she continued. ‘After I’ve taken the Doctor and these children home.’
Qwelby’s legs turned to jelly with relief. He clung on to Hannu as to a lifebelt in a storm-tossed sea.
‘Put him in an interview room, give him coffee, and don’t say anything to anybody about what’s happened in the woods. U.n.d.e.r.s.t.a.n.d!’ Sjöström ordered.
Intuition told her that there was more to the situation with the black boy than met the eye. ‘In more ways than one,’ she said to herself. But this was neither the time nor the place to explore that. She needed to keep a lid on what had happened. Her curiosity she would satisfy later.
A few minutes later Sjöström pulled up outside the doctor’s house. As the three youngsters got out, Hannu turned to Qwelby. ‘You sure?’ he asked, showing the stone he was holding.
Qwelby could not speak. He desperately wanted, needed, to keep it. But the energy consequences of doing so without permission were unthinkable. Internal disruption and, at home, that would summon the terror of a visit from Readjusters.
With a shrug of his shoulders, Hannu handed the stone to Sjöström with an explanation, and Qwelby’s request.
Keskinen remained in the car for a discussion,
which was quickly concluded to the satisfaction of both. Her report would keep the children’s involvement to the minimum. No mention would be made of Qwelby’s injuries on the basis of Keskinen’s assurance that Qwelby would be taken to hospital if there were any problems and she would be advised immediately. The Doctor would go to the station the following day to make a formal statement.
‘Shit! You do look awful,’ Hannu said to Qwelby as they entered the hall with its bright light.
‘Upstairs, quick,’ Anita said.
Once in the bathroom Qwelby stripped to the waist.
‘What the… happened to you?’ Hannu exclaimed, cutting short his expletive as he remembered that Anita was there.
Looking in the mirror, Qwelby was shocked by the state he was in. His lip had swollen, dried blood was splattered all over his face from that and the nosebleed. He could see a bruise forming below one eye. There was a big bruise in the centre of his chest, several nasty gashes over his arms and torso and blood was trickling from a wound in his shoulder and three long gashes running the full length of his chest and stomach.
As he collapsed onto the side of the bath he noticed rips in his trousers, stained red with blood. ‘That was really real,’ he said in an awed tone of voice. ‘In your world.’ He had been on the verge of dismissing what had happened as having been an ultradeepstate. But seeing the torn trousers, he knew if they had been caught in that groundquake rather than separated by it…
His head swimming and his heart pounding, Qwelby groped for Hannu and clung onto him, breathing heavily as images cascaded through his mind.
Anita was standing at the basin holding a wet a flannel.
‘Tank you, tank you, tank you. Bot of you,’ Qwelby said, as he pulled away and sat back on the edge of the bath, his face almost grey with shock. The bruising was already easing and his words coming out a little clearer.
Anita handed the wet flannel to Hannu and carefully unwound her bloody scarf from Qwelby’s neck. She told Hannu to clean Qwelby’s face and neck whilst she found and then applied a dressing and a bandage to his neck. That done she took a towel and started to dry Qwelby.
Ripped Apart: Quantum Twins – Adventures On Two Worlds Page 35
