Frozen Fire

by Wendy L. Koenig

  Chapter 23

  Up and about

  Denefe awoke early on the fifth day from another dream about being chased by giant spiders the color of sand. For a moment, she lay in bed wondering which life was the real one—the spider-world or the one where she’d fallen through time into a desert only to discover everything she’d known was a lie.

  Her dream had been so vivid and detailed. She went over it again in her mind, looking for hidden meaning but finding none. It seemed to be about nothing more than anxiety brought on by her frustrations and fears in that strange place.

  She sat up, noting it was much easier than the day before. Testing her limbs in a full range of movements, she found the pain, while still there, had lessened considerably. With a grim smile, she carefully twisted to hang her legs over the side. She had something to do.

  Placing her feet flat on the floor, Denefe eased herself into a standing position. It wasn’t exactly comfortable. Perhaps she rushed things a bit and ought to go back to bed, but she wouldn’t. Her anger at her parents, for their abandonment, was too strong. She was furious with Torenz too. He shouldn’t be listening in her mind whenever he felt like it.

  She took a tentative step and cringed at the sudden slice of agony across her abdomen, questioning her decision to walk, but she was an athlete and was used to pain and pushing through it. Denefe braced herself against the mattress and took another step and another. Her teeth were bared in defiance as she traveled the length of the bed.

  Reaching the end, she hesitated only a brief second before stepping into the middle of the room, arms outstretched for balance like a tightrope walker. It took a millennium to cross to the dresser, but she made it. She slumped against the drawer faces and looked up at her parents’ photo. “Did you see that? Kaleen’s just as tough, but in different ways. You shouldn’t have left us behind. We were worth your love and time.”

  Denefe reached up, removed the picture from the wall, and placed it face down on the dresser. She wasn’t going to destroy it. Torenz might want it later. She didn’t have to have it in her face, either.

  “I hope your baby boy was worth it.”

  She turned and began her slow journey back to her bed. Halfway up the mattress, Torenz made his appearance. He glanced at her dresser, and said, “Redecorating, I see.”

  She didn’t look at him. The smile was evident in his voice. “So glad you find this amusing.” She let her sarcasm contaminate her words. One more step and then she could ease the weight off her shaking legs.

  “Amusing? Nope. I’m just trying to lighten your mood.” He walked into the room as she turned and prepared to relax on the bed.

  Lowering, her abdominal muscles screamed with pain at the half-sit point, so she let herself fall the rest of the way. It wasn’t particularly graceful, but a whole lot less painful.

  Torenz raised his eyebrows, but wisely said nothing about her lack of elegance. Instead, he asked, “So, can I stay, or am I still on a ‘Please leave’ notice?”

  “I want my clothes, not these pajamas.”

  As if waiting for an answer to his question or worrying what to say to her request, he stared at her a moment. He crossed to the dresser and pulled out some clothes from the top drawer. Placing them beside her on the bed, he said, “Yours were destroyed. Besides, you don’t need a parka here.”

  She reached for her clothes and he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Denefe picked up the smooth, sleeveless shirt first. If she could walk to the dresser, then she could dress herself. So what if it took her a little longer than usual. However, it took her so long Torenz knocked on the door, offering help, which she refused. By the time she finished, beads of sweat slid down her brow.

  “I’m dressed,” she called to the door.

  Torenz entered, leading the shuttle cart. “I’d like to get breakfast sometime before supper tonight.” He grinned.

  In spite of the slow burn of anger within her, she smiled weakly. She was starving too.

  It took almost no time to get to the tiny dining room. It boasted only four tables, each with six chairs. Her original estimation of eighteen people seemed to be correct. At that moment, only five of the chairs were filled. From the furtive glances cast in her direction, she could guess the topic of conversation.

  Trying not to be conspicuous, she tucked her white hair behind her ears, wishing for a hat. She chose a diagonal table from the group of three, across from the pair playing chess, limiting the ease of which she could be studied.

  Torenz emerged from the kitchen with two plates and joined her. While they ate, he told her about the facility.

  “The anomaly here was the first one mapped. When the most sophisticated telecom devices all failed, people were sent through. They died and no one knew the reason. The idea was hit upon to use a telepath. The first one died without anyone the wiser as to why.”

  “Because it’s only telepath to telepath through the rifts. Links with normal people won’t hold.” She pointed her spoon at him. It amused her that he called it by the scientific term—anomaly. It made sense, since he’d been surrounded by scientists pretty much all his life.

  He nodded. “The second time, the telepaths were ready. The first one arrived, and choked on sand. He tried to return but couldn’t. That’s when they discovered it was a one-way trip.”

  “One way? Wait. What? Am I trapped here?” Denefe’s mind skittered sideways. Never go home again, to never see Kaleen or Ardense again? No. It couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t believe it. There had to be a way. There was always a way.

  Torenz held up his hand, forestalling any more questions. It did little to calm the chaos in her mind, though. He said, “Immediately, his partner called for oxygen and sent it and supplies through with a three-man digging team. Within a few hours, they’d dug a tent-sized compartment.”

  “They kept digging and building and shipping over equipment ever since.”

  “Yes. As you can imagine, GlobeX was eager to begin studying the anomaly from this side. When they did, they discovered there were more. Each a long tunnel through space and time, sometimes their walls missing each other by mere centimeters.”

  “Sidewinders?”

  “That’s what happens when the tunnels actually do touch. See, they’re always moving, some more than others. It’s just the two ends that are fixed. When they touch, they don’t just cross one into the other, they often shoot out arms and legs to other locations. Most times, they’re only temporary. Occasionally, they stabilize and we get multiple points from the same hub.”

  “Brazil Base.”

  “And the Siberian hub, where Kaleen is stationed. Or was, until she decided on the archaeology trip.”

  Denefe bit her lip. Her brother seemed to know a lot about her and Kaleen’s lives. He had been listening to them a lot. She asked, “So, if the hubs are multiple tunnels, connected, then how are we able to go to the jump we want and not randomly land at one of the other points?” She’d never before cared to know about the workings of the rifts. It seemed important now, though.

  “That’s actually easier than you think. We’re injected with a computer chip.” Torenz tapped his temple.

  The hair on the back of Denefe’s neck bristled. In her mind, she again saw Starry’s damaged head and Bridger pointing to where the chip had been lodged. “We all have one?”

  “Every one of us. When the primary CAE sets the destination code into the computer, a message is sent to our chip, which then emits a sonic pitch that coincides with the pitch of the tunnel we want to travel. Dad came up with that one.”

  “Why were our parents here?”

  “They were that first team. The ones I told you about. Dad came through first, was choking so Mom sent oxygen and diggers to him.”

  Denefe once again felt her world turn upside down. Yet another lie. She’d always been told that the telepathic ability had skipped generations, that her parents hadn’t been telepa
ths.

  Chapter 24

  Toc-toc-toc

  Back in her tent at the dig, Kaleen rummaged through Denefe’s bags until she found the small green metronome. It looked like hers and her sister’s, but the thing was oddly weighted as she turned it over and over in her hands.

  Pin, hole, metronome, once, Denefe had said.

  Holding it close, she inspected its smooth wooden sides, but saw no pin hole of any kind. Furthermore, she saw no telltale scar that made it Denefe’s. The damage had happened when they’d been rough-housing as children. They’d bumped a desk and sent the metronome crashing to the floor, leaving a long scratch in its back.

  So, if it wasn’t her sister’s, whose was it? Why did Denefe have it?

  Kaleen peered closely at the gold GlobeX emblem on the front.

  She didn’t see anything there either, but as she ran her thumb around the edge, her nail caught in the dark shadow of the outside circle. Pulling the metronome even closer, she saw the tiny pinhole. Clever. If she hadn’t known to look for it, she wouldn’t have seen it.

  She narrowed her eyes at the archeological marker she’d set nearby to use as a pin. The stem was too wide for the hole. She rose from her curled position on the floor of the tent, stepped across Denefe’s bags to her jewelry box, and fetched an earring that had been her mother’s. After removing the clip on the back, she pushed the point of the post into the hole. Nothing happened.

  Turning the metronome over and over again, she finally discovered a tiny hole hidden in the wood grain of the base. She pressed the earring into it, and immediately a recorded voice began speaking in some foreign language.

  With a heavy frown, Kaleen considered what to do. Denefe’s message had been explicit in pushing the pin once. She didn’t dare tamper with it again.

  She grabbed a heavy towel from Denefe’s bag and wrapped it tightly around the still-speaking metronome. Donning her parka, she bolted out the door for Bridger’s lab.

  If he didn’t understand what the recording was saying, he probably knew someone who did.

  Chapter 25

  Whys and wherefores

  Denefe’s mind was still reeling after breakfast with Torenz. When he decided on an impromptu tour of the facility, she half-mindedly agreed. Her brother chattered on, but she heard nothing he said. She didn’t believe what he’d said about the one-way-ness of the rift. There had to be a way. She pushed it aside for later.

  The thing that occupied her now was that her parents hadn’t died in the rocket plane wreck. They’d lived on, there, in this underground lab. While abandoning two baby girls, they’d kept the boy. They’d worked for GlobeX. They were telepaths. They were complete strangers and nothing of what she’d been told. She’d grown up knowing them in a certain way, accustomed to the feel of being an orphan. This upside-down feeling of not really knowing them swamped her.

  Torenz stopped outside a door, one of a dozen that looked the same. “This was Mom and Dad’s quarters. Well, mine too. I still live here.” Torenz made as to move on, but Denefe piloted the shuttle car closer to the door.

  “Do you still have their things? May I see?”

  He hesitated, a play of emotions crossing his face. He shrugged and then opened the door.

  The rooms were cozy with two bedrooms off a main family area. She parked her shuttle car and gingerly worked to her feet. It didn’t hurt as much as the early morning walk had, but it was enough to make her catch her breath a few times.

  Torenz pointed to the smaller of the two bedrooms. “I moved their stuff in there so I could have the bigger room.”

  Angling the trajectory of her shuffle-creep toward the indicated room, she found herself nodding. She would have changed rooms too. “I think most people would do that.”

  “Yeah, well, it made me feel pretty guilty for a long time.”

  Denefe paused her slow walk and met his gaze. There was an uncertain quality to the way he stood, hunched with hands in his pockets. He wanted her understanding. Her approval. Turning back to her target destination, she said, “These people aren’t who I was told my parents were, but I can’t see any parent not wanting the best for their…son. That includes bigger bedrooms…I guess.”

  This last she said more to herself as confusion ran her over. Again, she wondered about these people called her mother and father. Real parents didn’t just abandon their children. Maybe she’d find some answers there.

  She glanced quickly at her brother, but he seemed content with the acceptance she’d given. Had he even noticed her hesitation?

  Stopping at the door, she viewed the room and its contents. A small bed sat in the corner. Probably Torenz’s old one. Piles of children’s toys and clothes rested on it along with a separate pile for items obviously made by a child. Gifts to Mommy and Daddy?

  She was suddenly quite sick of feeling sorry for herself. Her parents had had a reason for what they’d done. She just needed to figure it out. Depending on what she found, it could go a long way toward forgiveness.

  Torenz watched from the door as Denefe slowly crossed the room. The dresser top was crammed with her parents’ personal items, including a pocket watch, matching hair brush set, plain barrettes, hair bands, and several pairs of glasses. The drawers were stuffed with clothes, ancient physics books, scientific journals, and electronic tablets.

  She picked up a copy of Physics, Then and Now. “What’s with all the hard copies?”

  “Dad had macular degeneration. As time went on, it became more and more difficult for him to read the electronic tablets. Bringing an eye surgeon here on a one-way ticket wasn’t a possibility.”

  There was that phrase again—one-way. She tightened her mouth into a firm line and repeated her newest mantra. There would be a way. Replacing the magazine in its drawer, she reached up and ran her finger across the smooth surface of a barrette. “Mom grew her hair long. I would have liked to have seen that.”

  Torenz cleared his throat. “Actually, those were Dad’s. He said there was no point in cutting his hair because there was no one important stationed here and Mom didn’t care.”

  Denefe’s jaw dropped and she stared at him. That was almost verbatim what she’d thought about her uniform at the Brazil Base.

  Torenz must have noticed her reaction. “What?”

  Sorrow and loss pinged through her. Instead of answering his question, she parried with one of her own. “Which parent are you most like?”

  He laughed. “I’m Mom. Through and through.”

  “Me?”

  “That’s easy. You’re like Dad. Kaleen is like Mom too. Just in a different way than me.”

  Like Dad. Kaleen was like Mom.

  Two halves of the whole.

  Denefe began her perusal of the room again. “Why did they leave us behind when they risked taking you as an infant?”

  “The plan was for Mom to take me first because I was the strongest of the three of us. Then you two were to come with other members of the team. They made special pouches for us, based on everything they knew about the anomaly at the time. It wasn’t enough. I almost died. Mom had to doctor me for a long time. They didn’t want to risk it with you two.”

  “Later? When we were older?”

  “By then, our parents were gone. I…didn’t think you’d want to be trapped here.”

  She tried her earlier questions again. “Am I? Trapped here? There’s no way home?”

  Torenz slowly nodded. “The anomaly is only one way, and the desert is too deep. I’m sorry.”

  Denefe felt as if she’d been slapped. She stared at the familiar brown eyes and white hair of her brother. “Sorry? My sister is there, in that world! A man who loves me is waiting for me to come back! Do you think you could do better than ‘I’m sorry’?”

  He let his gaze drop to the floor, breathing hard. He stood like that for a moment. When he did eventually raise his eyes, they were red-rimmed. He spoke softly. “I know what it’s like. I was
nine years old when I found out I was only one-third of a person, that two-thirds of me was out there, in that world.” He pointed to the distant right. “How do you think I felt, knowing I would never be a complete person? That I would always be alone here?” He paused, and when she didn’t answer, he continued. “I’m just saying that I know what you’re going through. I really do. ‘I’m sorry’ is the best I’ve got.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us? You could have said something.” She tapped her temple.

  “I wasn’t allowed.”

  Now it was Denefe’s turn to pause in sudden understanding. “GlobeX was listening with their own telepaths.” She nodded, thinking back to age seven. That was when she and Kaleen had first noticed people listening in on their telepathic conversations. Suddenly, their fosterage caregivers would know things that they had only told each other. It was when they’d invented their message code.

  Torenz said, “Still, I’d listen to your telepathic voices sometimes. It was comforting to me.”

  Denefe concentrated on the waist-high shelf that ran the perimeter of the room. It was filled with electronic tablets and plain brown books. Pulling one of those latter, she opened it to see neat and concise handwriting. Her parents’ journals.

  “May I borrow some of these?”

  Torenz frowned. “Those are official GlobeX property. I can’t loan them until I get official authorization.”

  She nodded and turned as if to reshelf it. Blocking the view from the door, she slid the journal into her shirt. She shuffled the books on the shelf to hide the gap.

  Too bad for GlobeX. Those journals had belonged to her parents.

  Chapter 26

  Kaleen’s brother

  Pleading tiredness, Denefe returned to her room. She’d been in the underground facility for only a few days, but it felt more like a month. In truth, she was exhausted, even though it wasn’t even the middle of the day yet. She needed a nap and privacy to read the journal.