Ripped Apart: Quantum Twins – Adventures On Two Worlds (6 page)

The day after the twins’ disturbing adventures started well. Washed and dressed, they stood looking out of the bedroom window. They were trying to adjust to the fact that they had spent a large part of the previous day not merely working together, which was not unusual, but openly admitting that they needed to rely on each other.

That had been their life until they were twelve. From then on, each establishing their own identity had become very important. Even so, that had to be within the structure of their intense and unique genetic relationship. For a time they each had had their own bedroom-cum-study. More often than not they had ended up together in one room or the other, often squashing their four best friends in with them.

Eventually, they had persuaded their parents to let them have the attic as their domain for everything: a combination of individual spaces and sharing spaces. One large room artistically, or not according to their mother, divided into spaces for sleeping, studying, playing and a separate room that Qwelby called GirlySpace. Even Tullia agreed that she spent far longer in that corner then he ever would.

One day they would discover that Siyataka’s roof had been changed to its unusual shape shortly before they were born, that their extensive wheedling, carefully explaining how easy it would be to convert the attic, had been unnecessary, and that their parents had so enjoyed the twins’ inventiveness that they had made them wheedle for longer than originally intended.

*

Recalling how good it had felt when Tullia had cuddled up to him, wanting to be cared for, Qwelby decided to humour her by letting her arrange his thick hair into her latest style for him. As he watched in Mirror the green lights flickering around the comb and brush, they thoughtshared their feelings about their Out-Of-Body experiences.

Their Images quivered and their faces grew older. Tullia’s hair became full of thin plaits interwoven. A style she had never effected. Qwelby’s hair had grown so long that it was pulled back behind his head in a mane. They sensed each other trembling with anticipation, and saw the dull yellow of fear flickering at the edges of their auras.

Tullia pushed her twin’s hair into a fringe, then swept it away as she broke eye contact and steadied her anxiety. ‘Breakfast.’

Feeling excited, a little fearful and in need of reassurance, instead of sliding down the twirlypoles they walked down the stairs side by side, careful not to hold hands. They were fifteen-years-old. Togetherness was one thing, getting mushy for a second day running was not on.

*

Their mother was very much a homemaker, taking pride in managing the family farms at Siyataka and Lungunu, giving instructions to the domestic appliances, and occasionally even cooking by hand. Full of living wood, Kitchen looked and felt old and rustic. ‘An energy balance with the all the hi-tech equipment in my husband’s part of the house,’ she would say to surprised guests. As she moved around Kitchen it filled itself with a sound like branches happily rubbing together in a soft breeze.

As they all sat down, the miniature twistors in Tullia’s earrings broke away from their restraining gluons. Chaos resulted. The kitchen ended up looking as though a whirlwind had swept through it.

Mizena was so upset at the mess in her kitchen that she turned the clock backwards. Back upstairs Tullia adjusted her earrings, then the twins went downstairs, and the whole morning dissolved into chaos for the second time.

Time-travel was both theoretically possible and believed to be actually possible in the eighth dimension. In their worlds of the fifth and seventh, it was as though anyone that went back in time found themselves in a cocoon and unable to step outside of reality. Going forwards in time never happened.

In desperation, their mother reversed the clock again, further back in time. The twins awoke and this time Qwelby tried to help Tullia firmly fix the twistors in place. Try how they might, the family was unable to avoid what fate had in store for them that morning, and Mizena fled from the kitchen in tears.

Shandur sent the twins to Barn, correctly judging that the twistors could not go too far away from their homes in his daughter’s earrings. He needed them all out of the way whilst he thoughtsent to the Helping Hands Agency. In no time at all several “Pairs of Hands” as the young Apprentices styled themselves, arrived and helped clear up the mess.

When order had been restored, and Shandur had the earrings safely locked in a box, he patiently coaxed his wife out of yesterday and reminded the family they were going to Lungunu. As a treat, he said they would all fly their twistors and go the long way round.

Riding what looked like a permanently revolving, elongated corkscrew the size of a PowerSled required a very sophisticated saddle and a lot of skill. Twistors chose their own colours to reflect their personality. Against his father’s suggestions Qwelby had chosen his favourite: bright red with orange stripes.

As they were nearing Lungunu, ignoring his father’s thoughtsending, Qwelby swooped low over a forest, looking pretty with its mass of yellow winter berries standing out against the snow. Unfortunately, they were not berries but the crests of SentryBirds. Startled, the whole flock rose up, shrilling their alarm calls. The large aegiele with its bright red breast was their most feared predator. Seeing the bright red swooping down on them, they attacked, shooting streams of ochre coloured goo like semi-liquid chewing gum that they used to trap the small rodents that were their favourite diet. Qwelby and his twistor were covered in it.

As the family arrived at Lungunu and settled their twistors into the cradles, Lellia appeared with TAC, the third assistant cook. To Qwelby’s surprise, Lellia was happy. She was working on analysing the SentryBirds’s goo and was delighted to have so much to use. The downside was that he was not able to use the neutron shower for his clothes and helmet which would not be cleaned until much later in the day.

Qwelby was sulking. Like his twin, he had been wearing the flying suit given to him on their rebirthday three months ago: emerald green with bright vermilion slashes that looked like flames. With ‘one on him’, as Tullia described his childish moods, rather than go to their suite and find some more clothes, he stomped into the Gather Room wearing what any Tazian boy wore underneath a flying suit: snug shorts and a tank top. He consoled himself with the fact that the satchel with their uncle’s gizmos in it was clean, having been safely stored in the twistor’s saddle box.

Designed by Lellia, the Gather Room was a charming blend of furnishings in a modern angular style within a traditional room, the soft pinks and oranges of the gently moving colourscopes on the walls giving a feeling of warmth. Set against one wall which, with tiny lights twinkling against the deep blue represented the enormity of space, pride of place was given to a series of Living Statues of those Uddîšû whose genes were borne by the various members of the family. In any other setting that would have been ostentatious, but the Gather Room was used almost exclusively by the family. On the rare occasions when other people were present, the Statues disappeared into the seventh dimension.

At the other end of the sofa, Tullia was still happily wearing her flying suit. They were so stylish that youngsters often wore them even when not flying. Hers was a rich, deep purple with flame-like patches of bright violet. Like any flying or body suit, many of the bright patches contained artfully hidden, teethless zips, called szeames.

Tullia was always very careful only to put in her pockets the tiniest things that she might ever need. There was no way she was going to spoil the look of her suit by having bulging pockets like some boys did.

‘With the KeyPoint only a day away, the latest experiments being conducted on Azura are stressing the XzylStroem,’ Mandara said. He nodded to his great nephew who knew that the Academy of Discoverers was becoming increasingly concerned by the successes Azuran scientists were having on practical levels.

‘That is dangerous,’ Lellia added, her eyes looking from Tullia to Qwelby. ‘To remind you. A key function of this, the first XzylStroem, is to maintain all other five in balanced harmony, and the link with Azura.’

‘Oh do stop that!’ snapped Qwelby at Tullia, who was absent-mindedly playing with her szeames. ‘It’s really irritating.’

‘Don’t blame me!’ Tullia snapped back. ‘It’s not my fault you got bird shit all over your flying-suit.’

‘It’s not…’

‘Enough!’ Mandara said. ‘We have a lot to talk about. Seriously.’ He thoughtsent to the twins to concentrate. The brief flaring in the their energy fields settled, he focussed his attention on them

‘In order to discuss what happened yesterday,’ he continued, ‘you will need some background information. Knowledge you will not be taught on your college days, but left for you to discover for yourselves when you are much older. Knowing how much you have asked all of us about yourselves, and that you have searched the Archives, will you tell us what you have learnt about Auriga, and our race’s background. It will save boring repetition.’

‘And correcting anything that needs…’ Lellia added, with a smile.

Tullia glanced at her twin who nodded. No point in them mindmelding as each knew exactly the same as the other. She uncurled her legs, then curled them back underneath her the other way round. She felt a humorous tickle in her mind. It had Qwelby’s signature.

‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ Tullia asked, in her best imitation of her favourite Assistant Educationer, thoughtsending her twin a smile. ‘Then I’ll begin.’ She smiled sweetly at the adults. ‘This is with all six of us working together.’

‘Each Essence emerged from the primal chaos onto Auriga in the third dimension, a baby bounded by Form and Time, just like on Azura.’

The room went cold as the adults withdrew behind a Group PrivacyShield to share their shock that the youngsters had been able to discover that. How? It was so securely shielded.

Looking smug at their obvious consternation, Tullia waited until their auras settled.

‘Evolving over increasingly longer periods of time, the Essence moved into successive higher, faster, vibrations of the other dimensions.

‘Four. It acquired consciousness and became a proper human being. No real change externally as it was still bounded by Form and Time.

‘Five. It gained a very limited elasticity of Form and Time. Just like us today.

‘Seven. She or he learned how to exit Form and adopt any appearance they liked. Again just like we can. We think that the Auriganii were able to remain in the seventh for much longer periods than us.

‘Eight. Time-travel is said to be possible in the eighth, so, and we are…’ Tullia’s lips quirked in a smile as she received her twin’s clear thought:
‘Not guessing’
‘predicating that life in the eighth was totally without Form.

‘Nine. The Space Wars suggest that Auriganii combined into amorphous groups. That must have been there, because:

‘Ten. We know that is where we go to merge into The All.

‘Our two biggest assumptions are.

‘That all the way through that life, the Auriganii had increasing numbers of sequences of DNA being activated on each transition.

‘The sixth level of vibration, or dimension. No direct information. We think it might be like Kaigii and I wrapped into in an HWAdventure, where it’s a sort of tunnel that enabled the Auriganii to move across dimensions.’

Qwelby’s thought arrived. She glanced at him. His right hand was raised, making it look like he had only three digits. It was from their favourite Azuran Space flikker, a gesture they had adopted from a man who was made to look a little bit like a very pale Tazian.

Tullia smiled. Sulking was childish. But, well, he was only a boy. And always Kaigii.

‘We don’t understand how they were able to use a space ship to leave Auriga and travel across several galaxies in only forty thousand sun cycles, when they had to take life in the third dimension with them. Even if they could warp space-time-consciousness, we know they had to travel within planetary systems because of the fighting. And that must have been to search for a new home planet and get food and stuff for the people. Unless…’ She felt her twin’s encouragement.

‘We know the Auriganii lived for at least two thousand years, so there would be an awful lot of older, faster ones compared to those in the lower dimensions. We think those of the highest vibrations were able to wrap their energy fields around the space ship. And.’ She took a deep breath.

‘They lived on some sort of space food. Energy from distance suns, well stars really.’ She finished talking in a small voice, expecting, hopefully polite, derision. The last part was all so fanciful.

‘Well, Chief Educationer Tullia Rrîl’zânâ Mizenatyr, that is impressive,’ Mandara said, smiling, whilst Tullia’s face split from ear to ear with a big grin. She was mindbathed in approbation. She felt Qwelby join her. ‘
Fair’s fair Kaigii. What I’ve explained is what all six of us worked out,’
she thoughtsent. Full of confidence she continued.

‘There was great Darkness that was difficult to penetrate around how the Auriganii DNA sequences degenerated from twelve down to three segments for us and two for the Azurii. And…’ Not liking what they had sensed, she sent a pleading thought to her twin.

‘We are taught that there was a terrible war amongst the Azurii that caused the separation,’ Qwelby said as he took up the story. ‘From the feelings we got in the Archives it was like around the Space Wars but much worse. There were these terrible feelings of guilt and shame. Why, if the war was amongst the Azurii? We think there must have been war here on Vertazia as well. No facts. It was like the Darkness was trying to cover up that “we” were fighting. With the Space Wars the feelings of the violence were bad, but always there was the sense of it wasn’t “us” that was causing it. We know from our history that we were only defending ourselves in those times, don’t we Dad?’

With the DragonRider genes that he had passed onto his son, and because of their unique relationship, also to his daughter, Shandur nodded. ‘Yes. Always only in defence.’

‘And we’ve never found any more information about us. That’s weird,’ Qwelby said as feelings of frustration ran strongly through the auras of both twins.

‘Very weird,’ Tullia added, looking almost accusingly at her parents.

‘Tullia, Qwelby,’ Mandara said. ‘I have to tell you that I found it very difficult to discover all the data you must have uncovered. From which, by the way, I have drawn very similar conclusions. Except. The war was entirely amongst the humans. It was the side effects of that destroyed our bases, and thus our ability to translocate to Azura.’

He shielded his thoughts that it had been so difficult to drill down to find some of the data that he suspected a deliberate attempt had been made over the centuries to hide the more revealing aspects. Around those areas there had been an unpleasant, dark, energy. What was of even more concern were the stories that over the centuries a handful of researchers had been mind damaged. That was attributed to Aurigan defences around ancient and forbidden areas.

Recently, Mandara had very reluctantly come to the conclusion that the dark energy he had experienced was not Aurigan in nature, but indicated Antiquarians or Custodians. It was a worrying discovery in a supposedly open society that that made him wonder exactly what more lay concealed in the Archives beyond even his reach.

The twins looked at one another, wondering if it had been a mistake to let the adults know what they were able to do. But, to tell only half truths was almost as bad as lying – and both clearly showed up in the speaker’s aura.

Since Qwelby had become elderest to Wrenden and they had formed XOÑOX, a lot of exploration was done as a group of six. The more difficult it was to access the information, the more fun they had in winkling it out. Except there were times when they had come across an exceptionally strong, foul Darkness that seemed to be at the root of the Kumelanii’s fears. They hadn’t wanted to try to penetrate it. It had been forbidding: full of foreboding, guilt and shame.

They had chosen the name XOÑOX from their mantra: “xátuyé osiy nola nola osiy xátuyé”. A lot later they were to discover that they could make XONNOX from several of the Azuran languages, but that it didn’t quite work in the most common one: six all one one all six.

Shandur and Mizena were relieved that their children had not discovered anything about the short lives of the previous pair of Quantum Twins. They had a lot to discuss with their children and wanted them relaxed and at home to do that with no more worries on their minds. As they thoughtshared that with their great uncle and aunt it seemed as though everyone was plunged into an HWAdventure: immersed in an enormous fish tank as a wave swept through it, rippling through their bodies and distorting their vision.

‘The Stroems are Swirling strongly this KeyPoint,’ Lellia said, standing up and walking to the door. ‘They’ve started earlier than normal and, as you know, the effects will continue until the solstice is past. I’ll come back as soon as they are settled for a while.’

‘Tullia, Qwelby, what you have discovered is nothing short of amazing,’ Mandara said as the door closed behind his wife. ‘You must have gone very deep into the Archives. Just with your four friends?’

Two grinning faces nodded.

‘Please make me a promise. None of the six of you are to explore those areas again, until I have had chance to discus this with your parents.’ He looked across to Shandur and Mizena. ‘I am very concerned about the Darkness that surrounds some the sections they must have explored, and again that mentally isolated them yesterday.’ He turned back to the twins and raised an eyebrow.

‘We promise,’ they said, looking puzzled.

‘Don’t worry, You haven’t done anything wrong. Far from it. But there are dangers, and we need to ensure your safety for future exploration.

The twins nodded, relieved that no-one was asking how they had managed to dig so deep. There were matters best kept from parents.

‘Now, with the Stroems so excited, I don’t want you exploring Lungunu today,’ Mandara continued. ‘Please use the Elmit Room. We’ll all get together later and sort out what happened yesterday. Another day we will talk about Aurigan times in detail. Meanwhile,’ he added with a grin. ‘I’ve got a new invention for you.’ He produced a small box from one of his pockets and opened it.

‘Wow! Miniature squigglesnakes!’ Qwelby exclaimed as he peered into the box.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Tullia scolded, pushing him aside to get a closer look. ‘They’re not real snakes!’

Mandara took a compact neutron magnifier from another pocket and placed it on top of the box. The twins could see what looked like two incredibly small spirals. As they looked closer they could make out arrays of wriggling wires at each end.

‘Nano technology!! What do they do??’

‘Guess.’

‘Nose de-bogeyfiers?’ asked Qwelby.