Ripped Apart: Quantum Twins – Adventures On Two Worlds (8 page)

Mandara shook his head.

‘Lets join our wives. They may have had more success than us.’

Some seasons ago, Garden had decided to turn a section at the back of the rear wing of House into a room, and had carefully grown various plants into the right shapes to provide things that could be used as tables and chairs. House had added energy fields for walls and a ceiling. Garden was still working on how to replace those fields with translucent plants.

As the men reached the Garden Room, Mizena got up, ran to her husband and threw her arms around him.

‘Tullia is alive and well. But we don’t know where she is. And we, I, think Qwelby is, but…’ she wailed as she burst into tears.

Clear blue sky, with the sun close to setting, throwing long shadows. House resealed the energy fields and added warmth to the air as everyone found somewhere to sit and Lellia briefly repeated what she and Mizena had experienced.

‘You’ve had more success than we did.’ Shandur said sadly, hugging his wife to him, as much for his comfort as hers.

‘They are not in the fifth or seventh dimensions. There is no way any Tazian can elevate to the eighth at present, not even Quantum Twins,’ Mandara explained.

He turned to look at his wife. ‘The third, but hopefully the fourth dimensions are a possibility. We need to explore the Accelerator room.’ He shrugged apologetically at his nephew and niece, they both knew that there were areas of Lungunu that were only accessible to people who had lived in the building and worked with its energies for a great many years.

‘Yes,’ Lellia agreed. ‘Right now, we all need to rest and restore our energies. Cook. We’re ready for our meals, in the Garden Room please.’

Shandur and Mizena were getting ready to return to Lungunu to continue searching for their children when the CommViewer chimed. Mizena sighed. It was the twins’ group of four best friends. This was a moment she had feared, but she had not expected it to come so soon. She knew that she could not conceal the amount of worry in her auras.

Taking a deep breath she said: ‘Welcome.’

The swirly cloud in the viewer slowly cleared and four faces bearing puzzled looks appeared.

Tamina spoke first. Three months short of her seventeenth rebirthday she was entering the most powerful trimester of her phase of creativity. In a nervous voice she said: ‘We haven’t had any contact with either of the twins for almost a whole day.’

‘We’ve lost contact with them,’ Mizena said baldly.

Tamina tilted her head to one side. ‘Mngnh?!’

Mizena’s shoulders shrugged. ‘We don’t know exactly where they are.’

‘They’re not… on Vertazia?’ Tamina asked. Given the hive-like mental linking across all Tazii, for their parents to have lost all mental contact with the twins was impossible – if they were anywhere on Vertazia. Had their lifelines been terminated, their parents would have felt the shockwave, as would Pelnak and particularly Tamina and Wrenden through their special relationships.

‘We’ve lost them!’ The words were out of Mizena’s mouth before she could stop them.

‘Uh-huh,’ Tamina murmured, glancing around her brother and friends.

‘How could you know?’ Mizena asked weakly.

‘Ever since I have been able to MentaSynch with them,’ Tamina explained. ‘even if they didn’t want to be contacted, I’ve always been able to sense them. Now it’s different. And Qwelby’s not there at all.’

‘What can we do to help?’ asked Tamina’s younger brother Wrenden. Forever asking ‘why not?’ when he was young had earned him the nickname of Yknot, which they pronounced “Why not” and which his sister had later shortened to Eeky. A little short of his fourteenth rebirthday, he was the only one of the four friends not to have a crystal for his EraBand: a torc or necklace given to every youngster on the occasion of their twelfth rebirthday.

Mizena sighed. ‘Switch to TransWeave, transport mode and come on through,’ she said. She wanted this sorted quickly and was content to use the family’s energy credits for the short journey rather than wait whilst the youngsters made other arrangements.

*

Tamina stepped through gracefully. Almost two metres tall, her height was accentuated by her slim Form. With her heavily slanted eyes, slim nose and generous mouth, for many years her young brother had expected to discover that she was not really his bossy sister but a domineering alien in a Tazian body. Her rich coffee-cream skin with a coppery tinge was matched by auburn hair, its naturally golden highlighted wavelets so long she could sit on it.

She was followed by Wrenden. Like his sister he was slim and, at one metre eighty, also tall for his age. Skin like his sister’s but with dark brown wavy hair, the top cut ‘en brosse’.

Pelnak and Shimara arrived together, stumbled, and only just managed to stop each other falling over. Although a few months older than the twins, the boy and girl were markedly shorter than them, rounder in build with a stronger red cast to their skin.

Their mothers were twins. Submitting to an imperative that they only vaguely understood, they had insisted on bringing forth the new lives together, in the same Incarnation Reception Suite
.
The two babies had been born at exactly the same moment. They were inseparable and acted more like twins than did Qwelby and Tullia. In that they were helped by the fashion amongst youngsters for unisex clothing and the identical, pageboy styles each had chosen for their red hair. They were often referred to as the ‘not-twins’, and sometimes called Pelnmara.

Aware of the mental communication, Shandur arrived in the kitchen and thoughtshared with his wife. She agreed.

‘Mizena will check with Uncle Mandara. Whilst she does that, I will get the Omnitor out.’

‘????’

‘With what happened yesterday, it’s not safe to transweave to Lungunu at present.’

Made up from six twistors representing the five basic directions and one that doesn’t, it lived all by itself in a green, space–time–consciousness continuum, called gesticc for short. The Omnitor didn’t have a name. Every time someone tried to give it one, the Omnitor handed it straight back. It was just called Ing. If anyone suggested that Ing was short for ‘inanimate thing’, it disappeared in a microsecond. Even in the quantum world, trying to winkle an Omnitor out of a microsecond was almost impossible.

*

Shandur’s call brought Ing to the door. It had a soft spot for the youngsters. Even when they were squabbling they were always polite, often thoughtsending capital letters with their ‘Tamuchlies.’ Picking up the feelings of worry, sadness and concern, Ing decided they needed cheering up. It arrived looking like a cluster of six, four dimensional stars gathered around a fifth, bright in a mixture of fluorescent colours. As each person entered a different star they found themselves seated inside the central one.

Ing always enjoyed taking people on journeys because it confused the logic out of every brain. It worked on the same principle as a twistor, instantaneously becoming five lines of infinite length, each in a different direction, except the one that didn’t.

Shandur had to locate which line passed through where they wanted to get off, and then stop. Ing took them through all five directions, one after the other, before allowing itself to be located at Lungunu. The four youngsters were left at the front door where they were greeted by Aunt Gallia, as they called the twins’ great-great aunt.

‘Why don’t you go down to the kitchen,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Cook can find you something nice to eat. Mandara and I need to talk with the twins’ parents.’

The not-twins didn’t really want to, because they wanted to do something useful. As usual, Wrenden thought:
‘Why not?’
Tamina took charge.

‘That’s a good idea,’ she said in a loud voice to cover up thoughtsending:
‘Cook likes twins. We winkle truth.’

‘Come to the Welcome Room when you’re ready,’ Lellia said, smiling at Tamina’s innocent belief that she was old enough to securely tightband a thought to three other people. That the youngsters would get the broad picture from Cook suited Lellia. She would not have to relate the distressing events and she wanted her nephew and niece to have privacy for the news she had for them about the Accelerator Room.

Cook had what she considered the perfect image: round and jolly with cheery red cheeks. The four friends knew that the way to her heart was through their stomachs.

Twenty minits of happy munching later and winkling successfully concluded, they knew all there was to know. Despite searching in every manner possible the adults had not been able to locate either twin on Vertazia, or in the seventh dimension which the friends had not thought of. Yet they had found sufficient evidence to indicate they were alive. Due to serious damage in a special part of Lungunu, Lellia and Mandara had not yet been able to pursue a theory that the twins might be on Azura.

‘If anyone can find them. We can,’ Tamina said with certainty. The others nodded. They knew how powerful the bond was between all six of them. ‘If they are on Azura, a group mentasynch, using the power of the Stroems,’ she announced into the silence.

They all knew that the basic function of the six Stroems was to maintain the link with Azura, but not even the twins had ever been allowed to go into the Cavern because of the potential danger. The others paled, licked their lips, then nodded: the six were BestFriends. They rose as one, gave their honourings to the animals and crops that had provided their meal, their thanks to Cook, and headed upstairs.

As they entered the Welcome Room, the friends had to admit that they were forever impressed by Lungunu’s skill. As the door closed they found themselves on a beautiful tropical island. Like most Tazii when indoors, none of them wore shoes so as to experience the variety of effects most floors enjoyed displaying. The beach felt like luxurious sandy coloured grass.

Disappointed to find four loungers waiting for them, they were pleased as their thoughts were recognised and the loungers moved together and transformed into a curved sofa, whilst retaining the multicoloured stripes of the loungers.

Lellia scrutinised the youngsters as they settled down and sent their ‘Tamuchlies’ to House.

Pelnak and Shimara were as quiet and self-composed as usual and living up to their nickname of ‘not-twins’. Both were wearing long-sleeved tops over trousers cut-off at mid calf. One with a top in shades of pale yellow over trousers with swirls of dark green, the other with a top of shades of pale green over trousers with swirls of dark yellow.

Wrenden had chosen plain colours to suit his sombre mood. A dark green sweater over brown cut-offs.

Tamina had shot up early to be much taller than usual for her age. Her discomfort at being head and shoulders above her contemporaries had been exacerbated when she developed a generous bust line. Lellia was pleased to see that she had at last got over her embarrassment which had caused her to badly round her shoulders, and was now celebrating her Form. A steely determination in Tamina’s aura was reflected in a figure hugging, sleeveless snuggy in shades of pale blue-grey over fashionable cut-off trouser-tights in electric blue with silver threads.

*

‘Aunt Gallia,’ Tamina started, ‘we know about the twins being missing. We ourselves think Tullia is all right, but we can’t reach Qwelby. We thought a group mentasynch using the energy of the Stroems?’ Although it was originally her idea, the others had agreed, so all four now owned it.

All three adults were taken aback.
‘Tamina had not been that explicit earlier,’
the twin’s parents thoughtshared, then remembered her exact words which they had not followed up.

‘I know none of us have been into the XzylCavern,’ Tamina continued when no one commented. ‘We need more power. And. Well. The twins have told us of the Stroems. And, I thought…’ Tamina finished in a small voice, deciding to take the blame for what she was sure was the forthcoming criticism.

‘I think my husband needs to hear this,’ Lellia said, thoughtsending him to join them.

Lift noted the urgency in Lellia’s request, and acted.

Tamina had only just had time to share her feeling of relief that Mandara’s being summoned meant they were being taken seriously when Lift arrived and dissolved, depositing him into a striped armchair. He arched one massive eyebrow.

‘Tamina,’ Lellia said. ‘Please start with why you contacted the twins’ parents.’

At sixteen years and eight months, Tamina was the oldest by a year, but she was not the leader. In true Tazian style the group had no leader. Being in Lungunu with the twins’ family, she wished they were there to explain. But. She was Tullia’s elderest and thus also a sort of older sister to Qwelby.
And to my own irritating brother.
She sat upright and folded her hands in her lap.

‘We all tune in to each other every day, even if only for a light touch.’ Set in soft, straw yellow ovals, the unusually large emerald green centres of her eyes went pale as she flicked into her memory, and she decided to summarise what had happened.

‘When none of us had reached either of the twins, we got together at our house. We formed our group in the usual way. And searched. I found a faint trace of Tullia. But she was only half there.’

‘I found no trace of Qwelby,’ Wrenden added, sadly.

‘Your group of four?’ Mandara asked. ‘How do you form that?’

‘Our ritual is really for all six of us. Sometimes we do something similar when we are… erm, experimenting with the twins…’ Tamina paused. She was having difficulty in keeping away from voicing any untruths, as that fact would be seen in her aura. She was also struggling with her emotions as she recalled the part they had all played in helping the twins to penetrate Mandara’s and Shandur’s Privacy Shield, which had led to them exploring the attic.

‘We did that when we helped them the other day,’ she finished brightly, thinking of the Bell Tower. Relieved, she went on to explain the ceremony used by all six of them.

‘We based it on one of the HoloWrapper adventures of Aurigan times,’ Pelnak added. ‘The twins suggested some changes to make it really ours and not just a copy of an HWFantasy.’

The youngsters were puzzled by the solid feeling of amazement issuing from Mandara.

Lellia was sending forth a strong feeling of encouragement, so it was natural for Wrenden to volunteer more.

‘I felt a bit left out as all the others have their fourteenth rebirthday crystals. So Qwelby made this for me.’ He slipped a hand down his sweater and pulled his EraBand into view. It was a torc made of a series of linked metal ovals, each striped gold and silver on a dark grey base. One oval was larger than the others and would be the home for whatever crystal was chosen and attuned to his torc. Attached to that oval by a short, invisible cord was an oval of green simujade. Everyone could see engraved on it were two, interlinked circles.

‘Your ceremony. You mentioned using a… plaque?’ Mandara asked.

Tamina reached into a pouch hanging at her side and held it out on the palm of her hand for all to see. There was a profound silence as the adults studied it.

*

Completely covering her hand everyone could see a slightly convex object with twelve straight sides. Fine grooves etched onto it created twelve isosceles triangles marked with the ten colours of the rainbow plus infra red and ultra violet. Joining the corners of each pair of adjacent triangles was a pair of intertwined lines, forming six larger isosceles triangles.

‘This is the result of all the time spent in my laboratory?’ Mandara asked.

Grins and nods were all the answer required.

The adults’ desire for further explanation was so strong there was no need for anyone to ask.

‘The twins designed all this,’ Tamina explained. They were very insistent it was done exactly as they said. Each of us applied two of the colours to adjacent triangles. Then we engraved the six sides of the inner figure. You will see that each side bridges exactly two segments. In this sequence.’ She pointed as she spoke. ‘Me, Tullia, Shimara, Wrenden, Qwelby, Pelnak. And we engraved those sides in opposite pairs. So Wrenden and I each engraved one line on both of our segments, and so on. The twins said its name is Óweppâ.’