Nervous as she was, she had to admit that her curiosity was aroused. When Daria had suggested her undercover idea, instead of dismissing it out of hand, Kyla decided to accompany their new Healer on this uncertain adventure. Her trust in Daria was so complete, she never entertained the slightest notion of denying her request. Still, she was extremely grateful that Ni-Cio would be close at hand. She never remembered her brother being afraid of anything and his presence helped calm her worst fears.
Ni-Cio finished his inspection and pushed the craft into the quiet pool. He smoothly lowered himself into a prone position at the helm and turned to offer his hand to Daria. His upper body was supported by thick padding that adjusted to his form and his legs rested at slight angles and fell to either side.
“It kind of reminds me of the rocket motorcycles topside.”
“Come, love, it is very comfortable and the craft will conform to the contours of your body.” Daria looked clumsy and unsure of herself, but trusting Ni-Cio, she clambered into the biosphere and settled behind him. She looked at her friend, “Oh, Kyla, a cloud couldn’t be more comfortable.”
Waves sloshed over the pool deck and licked at the brown sandals that covered Kyla’s feet. It was her turn. Her heart started to beat triple time. She knew she could end the charade before it began, or she could step into the craft and ascend to an unfamiliar world from which she might never return. Her resolve crumbled. She hesitated.
“Kyla, it will be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise from the bottom of my heart. Topsiders are not the monsters you envision. Besides, you might even enjoy this escapade.”
Ni-Cio added his encouragement, “Kyla, you are the sister of my heart and Daria is the love of my life. I would not draw another breath if I thought any harm would come of this scheme.”
Kyla squared her shoulders and made a last-minute adjustment to the foreign garments. She slid effortlessly into the waiting vehicle. Her eyes widened and she started to hyperventilate. She felt as though it would be her last taste of Atlantis. With one deep inhalation she nodded to her companions, “I believe the topside expression is, let’s rock and roll?”
When Daria could not hide her surprise, Kyla knew that she had gotten it right.
Daria raised a fist to the sky and yelled, “Exactly!”
Their excited laughter became encapsulated as the canopy materialized and Ni-Cio willed the biosphere into a dive.
Ni-Cio piloted the craft through the opening of a protected harbor. He kept the biosphere just under the surface until he glided to an effortless stop beside a crumbling concrete pier. In apprehensive silence, Kyla, Daria and Ni-Cio surveyed their chosen landing.
The dock stood as a decrepit testament of better times. Connected to a deserted boathouse and hidden from the surrounding warehouses, the unused condition of the wharf promised a small degree of privacy for the women to disembark. Harbor activity progressed at its normal morning pace, but by virtue of their location, their actions would remain concealed from roving eyes.
In one swift motion, Ni-Cio allowed the biosphere to tether to a nearby piling, and he disconnected his thoughts from the drive mechanism. His calm command flowed through the craft, “As soon as the canopy opens, I want Daria out followed by Kyla. I will submerge when you are on the dock.”
He turned and Kyla could see the full force of his purple glare. Cobalt colors rippled over his features. Her brother was on edge, but he struggled to keep his feelings in check so that she could remain somewhat calm.
“At no time do we break contact. If I feel the slightest change in the thoughts of either of you, I will be out of this craft before you can take your next breath. Your safety is of paramount importance. Agreed?”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” Daria saluted crisply while Kyla tried to regulate her breathing.
Ni-Cio pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. With a great show of forbearance, he shook his head back and forth. His raven hair brush lightly against his square shoulders, “You try my patience, woman!”
Daria took Ni-Cio’s hand and brought his fingers to her mouth to kiss the tips. Her solemn affirmation washed over Kyla like warm water. “Agreed, my love. We will not break contact.”
Ni-Cio peered over Daria’s head at Kyla. Her dread inhibited her capacity for speech. All she could do was nod her agreement. He opened the canopy.
Daria was first out of the craft and turned to help her friend. Kyla scrambled onto the pier, helpless, as her hands raked Daria’s back. She struggled to remain upright but had to bury her face in Daria’s shoulders. Frantic, she clung to Daria. Her breathing escalated to a wheeze.
From the moment she exited the biosphere, Kyla felt as though she had entered Dante’s version of hell and she reeled. As the radiance of the unfiltered sunlight blinded her, tears streamed down her cheeks and her eyes felt as though they had been skewered and sewn shut.
From every direction, strange odors assailed her nostrils so that she gagged with each intake of breath. A cacophony of noises such as she had never imagined ground upon her hypersensitive hearing. She cringed from the pain. Her senses were so violated that she thought she would pass out. She prayed that she would. Anything would have been preferable to the indescribable, insufferable, excruciating experience with which she had been ambushed.
Her brother felt her panic, “Kyla, are you all right? Daria, answer me! I am surfacing!”
“Stay there…I have to get her inside the building…she needs time to adjust!” Daria covered Kyla’s head with her arms and dragged her over uneven ground.
Kyla registered a loud crash and she stumbled over something. She heard a door slam and Daria pushed her inside a room that was dark and cool and most of all, quiet.
“Kyla?”
Kyla knew Daria was trying to talk, but she couldn’t seem to make herself respond. Daria pulled her through the room and propped her against something solid. She didn’t think she could stay on her feet and she felt her eyes start to roll back in her head as her knees gave way. Daria grabbed her waist and lowered her to the ground. “Kyla, slow your breathing…I am here…focus on my voice…”
Kyla’s mind felt like shattered glass. It took every bit of strength to comprehend what Daria was trying to tell her. With her eyes clamped shut, she drew one shaky breath and then another.
A sustained atonal healing harmony flowed into her psyche, soothing her until the rigidity in her body began to subside. Daria’s efforts were working well enough, but she was far from comforted. “I cannot do this, Daria…by the gods, it is worse than I imagined…no wonder topsiders want to damage things…”
Daria gently pried Kyla’s hands from her aching ears. Kyla opened her eyes to mere slits and processed Daria’s whisper as though it had been sent through an amplifier. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
Kyla recoiled from the sound, closed her eyes and nodded her understanding. She sat with her back pasted to the solid wall. Her hands were clapped over her ears, but she still heard Daria as she wound through the building.
Finally, Daria once again settled next to her. “Kyla, I found some welding supplies…these are goggles…I will pull them over your head and down over your eyes…they will shield you from the sun…”
Kyla took her hands from her ears and waited. Daria placed the sun shield over her head and with a gentle tug, stretched it across her eyes. Daria adjusted the fit, then Kyla heard her soft thought.
“Open your eyes…”
Kyla did as requested. She blinked to clear her vision and relaxed just a bit. The dark material mitigated any fears that she had been blinded forever. She smiled weakly and watched her friend tear open a small package.
“These are earplugs…they will help protect your ears…” Daria rolled the yellow material between her fingers and gingerly inserted one and then the other into Kyla’s ears. She ventured a normal tone of voice. “Is that better?”
Kyla grimaced. “It helps. Thank you.”
K
yla trembled as she tried to stand but Daria stopped her. “Let’s wait just a moment. You need a little more time to get your bearings.” Daria stroked her arm, “I’m so sorry. I never imagined what a shock the Terran world would be to your senses. Don’t worry, we will get through this one way or another. And if it’s too much for you, I’ll go by myself.”
One deep inhalation was followed by a very determined exhalation. Kyla didn’t want to hold up their mission any longer, “I believe I am ready to try again.”
Daria sent a quick healing probe. She must have been satisfied, as her next thought found its way to a very worried brother, “We are ready to try again…don’t even think about getting out of that biosphere…I will come to you…”
Daria helped Kyla stand and led her toward the exit. She cracked the door and looked back, “Kyla, the goggles and the earplugs will help buffer you, but nothing has changed outside. It is your decision whether to stay or go.”
Kyla prodded Daria with a gentle hand. “We go.”
Daria nodded. “Just be prepared.”
Pulling the door open, she walked into the Terran morning with Kyla in tow. They crossed to the docks but Daria stopped. “Can you stand it?”
Although still overwhelmed by the intensity of sight and sound and smell that was the makeup of topside life, the articles Kyla wore helped mute her senses. She knew it would be enough to let her process her surroundings without succumbing to them. “It is better.” She swallowed hard. As she gazed at her surroundings, she still had to lift her hands to shield her eyes. And she winced, even though the noise was more muffled. However, Kyla got her first look at the topside world, “Daria, even the pictures I have seen do not compare. It is so beautiful!”
Daria smiled and held up the spare earplugs and goggles she had found. “I’ll be back. These are for Ni-Cio.”
Kyla knew that their visit topside had been parceled into precious sweeps of time, so she was not surprised to see how fast Daria hurried to the biosphere. She watched her friend kneel and throw the purloined objects into Ni-Cio’s hands. “Under no circumstances do you come out of that contraption unless you are wearing those…we won’t be long…”
Daria ran to Kyla and took her by the hand, “We have to hurry. This may be a small island, but it’ll take a while to locate Travlor and believe me, we don’t have the time to waste.”
Kyla increased her stride and tried hard not to look like the gawking alien she knew she was.
The picturesque village of Fira crowned the top of an impossibly steep and winding trail. Kyla and Daria forged their way up the narrow road, forced to keep their talk to a minimum in order to conserve energy. They placed one foot in front of the other and Daria kept her head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone. However, Kyla was seduced by the wild beauty of the volcanic island and she couldn’t help staring about.
She tried hard for an air of studied nonchalance, but she felt ridiculous. Her gaze jumped from one sight to the next. She drank in the windswept terrain. The scenery of a land she never thought to see spread out before her with unadulterated abundance. It seemed to Kyla that the path they followed twirled over the cliffside with the same delirious abandon as tempest-tossed seaweed.
She glanced up, dazzled by the domed roofs that billowed over each other like earth bound clouds. The whitewashed buildings stood in stark contrast to the blazing blue of the Mediterranean sky and the volcanic black of the island soil. She was mesmerized. Even beneath the dark shield of her goggles, the white-hot gleam of stucco made her eyes water.
She stumbled over her feet because she couldn’t keep her eyes on the ground. Their upward trek continued, but Kyla’s pace lagged until she could no longer withstand the temptation. Entranced, she came to a full stop. She spread her arms and lifted her face into the wind, wanting to embrace the entirety of Terros. Daria came to rest beside her and Kyla heard her quiet voice.
“I felt exactly the same way when I first awoke in your chambers, although a lot more frightened. It was overwhelming.”
Unable to drag her eyes from the spectacle spread out before her, Kyla shook her head, “Even though we have books, and processors that resemble your computers, they do not do justice to the indescribable beauty of Terros. It is magnificent.”
The moments passed in silence until their time limitation niggled at the back of Daria’s mind. “I would give anything if we could spend more time. Forgive me, we must continue, but there will be a time when you will come back.”
Kyla glanced at her friend, curious as to why she would make such a statement. However, she was afraid to waste any more of their time or of Daria’s efforts. She bottled her questions and set a determined pace, and she and Daria soon reached the summit.
They entered a small store and Kyla waited while Daria tried to interpret directions to the town square. Their initial plan was to locate the marketplace, as it would be the focal point of village life. The second part of their plan leaned heavily upon the fervent hope that in the midst of the noisy back-and-forth of the local gossip, they might hear of any unusual occurrences.
Tired and winded from the hike, they were relieved to find that they were very near the square. They exited the store and stopped to rest in the shade of its veranda. Daria leaned back against the railing, but Kyla bent as far out as she could so that she could enjoy the view.
“The market is within a few blocks of us. How is your Greek?”
Kyla, intent upon watching the foot traffic, thought nothing of her reply, “Fluent.”
“What?”
Kyla was surprised to hear the shock in Daria’s voice. Then it dawned upon her that she had impressed Daria with her linguistic capability. She felt rather excited and self-important. Even so, she considered the fact that she spoke Greek a fairly mundane bit of trivia. She faced her friend, “Daria, consider our past. Where do you think this thriving Greek culture inherited their language?”
“But, you speak English so well!”
Kyla laughed at Daria’s bewildered expression. “You are aware that our lifetimes are quite extended. Did you think that all we do is swim around underwater and congregate to eat?” She was greeted by a puzzled shrug. “Well, as much as I love to swim, and eat, if that was all I had to do, I would be bored in no time.” Kyla smiled and raised her palms, “We study, Daria. We all have a love of learning and languages are just one facet we cultivate in our quest for knowledge.”
“Once again, I am reminded of how little I know about my adopted family. How many languages do you speak?” Daria laughed, although it seemed a bit uneasy to Kyla.
“Hmmm, that is a good question. At the moment I am fluent in forty-three languages and fifteen dialects, and I am in the process of learning nine other tongues.”
The topsider shook her head, sprang from the rail and dusted the backs of her pants. Kyla studiedly copied her movements.
“Well, you just made our job forty-three times easier. Let’s head to the marketplace and you can speak some Greek!”
The day had acquired an incandescent shine and Kyla excitedly followed Daria toward the central square.
People thronged the square. Tourists and locals basked in the late morning sun, enjoying the balmy day, as they strolled leisurely through the busy marketplace. Quaint shops and outdoor cafes lined the square and seemed to crowd one upon the other with the same festive disarray as children’s building blocks. Gentle breezes flowed through kitchens and bakeries, and the mouthwatering aromas of the island’s most magical culinary delights drifted through the air to entice hungry customers. In the background, the lively music of a local trio completed the charming island setting.
Daria and Kyla lingered in the deep shade of a covered terrace and observed the press of bodies that crowded the marketplace. Though Daria trusted that her appraisal of human nature was on target, she checked to be sure that Kyla’s powder still concealed her distinctive coloration. She tried to distract the nervous woman from the bustling scene. “Kyla, don’t worr
y, we’ll just walk around the square to get our bearings. Keep your ears open, and if we’re lucky, we’ll hear something.” Daria took a deep breath, “It’s now or never.”
Kyla nodded dumbly and grasped her hand so tightly that Daria was afraid she would lose circulation. She winked encouragement and guided her friend off the terrace and into the bright sunlight. When Kyla tripped and Daria heard her breathing start to escalate, she slid an arm around Kyla’s quivering waist and gently steered her into the square.
Daria helped Kyla walk as casually as possible, and other than the occasional admiring glance from some of the men, no one seemed to notice anything untoward. That fact alone helped bolster their confidence.
Daria released her arm from around Kyla’s waist. Content to follow in the footsteps of her friend’s meanderings, she could tell that Kyla looked more relaxed. Daria knew that Kyla had never been exposed to so much variety. The beautifully displayed wares of local artisans stood next to stalls laden with island produce. Clothes in bright colors dangled from hangers while street vendors hawked their wares.
Kyla ran her fingers over everything in sight. “I cannot concentrate on the conversations for wanting to run my hands over everything I see.” She stopped at a colorful display of silk scarves.
Daria whispered, “Don’t feel bad, everything is new to me too. Since this is our first pass, let’s just enjoy ourselves. All we’re trying to do is get a sense of this place. If by some cosmic accident we hear anything, great. Otherwise, let’s soak in the atmosphere. If we haven’t learned anything by the second pass, that’s when we’ll start worrying.”
In stunned bliss, they continued their tour and wound through the shops and byways of the boisterous marketplace. Daria took notice of the well frequented taverns, cafés, and coffee houses, and as the clock wound toward lunchtime, she decided that a visit to a local café would increase their chances of overhearing the information they sought.
Tides of Change Page 19