Touch of Danger (Three Worlds)

by Strickland, Carol A.

  The past's death cries howled in the ether. Trillions of beings, not only people but animals, plants, even the rocks themselves—stripped of their physical anchors to the universe in a few shared moments. For a second Lina couldn't breathe. She arched her back as sensation flashed through her. It had been heat. Some kind of Armageddon, supernova heat—

  Jae nodded hollowly. “An accident destroyed the world and everyone on it but me, back when I was a child.”

  “An accident? An entire planet?!”

  “Some military exercises nearby…got out of hand.” His voice grated. “A weapon pointed the wrong way.”

  She squinted at him. “You don't think it was an accident. You saw something.”

  No accusation or emotion showed on Jae's face. “It wiped out the perpetrators as well, so we'll never be sure. I was the only survivor.”

  Wiley said, “Every final report cited technological failure.” But his lips tightened, and his nose wrinkled as if he smelled something terrible.

  “I'm…so sorry,” Lina said, unable to decide what words were appropriate for genocide.

  “It was a long time ago. I've gotten used to the situation,” Jae said.

  “No you haven't.” With alacrity she took her seat again, gathering the white light around her. She asked it to project onto Jae, too. He must be protected! “You've never accepted it. It wears at you, it eats at your soul. It's torn your life apart and it's all you can do still to hold it together. It's getting worse. Isn't it? Isn't it?”

  “Ah… Yes,” he admitted, and concerned surprise bloomed on Wilder's face.

  “And they're telling you, it's like the whole planet's population is gathered around, reaching out to reassure you. They're saying it's all right, that they're all right. You volunteered while they left. What do you mean?”

  She paused again, listening. “’You were the one who willingly stayed behind to teach, to carry on, to make sure that Feith, all she was in spirit and culture, lived on.’ That's wonderful. The others…um. Could you repeat that? Oh. The others, everyone on Feith, from animals to people to the very planet itself— They were all ready to advance to the next level of development. They all needed to shed their physicality. To die.”

  She took a breath, trying to gauge Jae's reaction to all this, but the information swept her along. “They chose a quick death.”

  She had to give a small ironic laugh at this point. “They weren't stupid. They didn't want to suffer. This one took place in seconds. More efficient than manna-line,” [Jae inhaled sharply, that a non-Feithi should know that word] “to take care of everything at the same time. Moments for an entire planet to return to spirit.” Lina was absolutely serious at this point. “They made a choice that would serve two purposes simultaneously.”

  A sharp metaphorical image came through: the Washington Mall swarming with people carrying signs, their free hands raised in “V” salutes into the air as they sang, All we are saying… “A, a cause? A peace protest?”

  “That weapon,” Jae murmured, “is now forbidden for any world to use.”

  But she was almost oblivious to his comment, her pupils pinpoints. “Oh my god.” She bit her knuckles at what she saw, but bulled on.

  “There was one chosen, one who volunteered. You, Jae, before you were born the plan was in place, and you volunteered to remain behind. For that you are honored in a special place by the others. And loved.

  “But Sim Lenk observes without judgment that you have adopted hate and fear into your life, embraced them in a way that Feithi should not. ‘Hate and fear are not part of Feith, but you are eaten up with them. Go back and remember yourself, remember Feith. See past the fear, see past the pain and remember.

  “‘It is time to teach Feith. She lives inside of you, waiting for you to show her to the galaxy. It is the teacher who learns the most. Teach and learn, Jaeson.’”

  She blinked, coming back down a couple of notches. “Did you understand? You volunteered to be the survivor. You are supposed to teach your culture. The people, the planet you left behind—they're all okay. They're where they're supposed to be. They did not suffer overmuch when they died. They love you and wish you well. There is nothing for them to forgive, for everyone, including you, did as they were supposed to.”

  Lina watched Jae closely. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, arms crossed at the wrists, head cradled there, looking into space. He was silent for a long time and Lina waited patiently for him.

  “So I was supposed to survive.”

  “Yes. You—your Higher Self, I suppose—volunteered to be the one. There had to be one.”

  “And everyone else? Where are they now? My grandfather… my parents, my sister? My friends?”

  Lina searched for an answer. “It's beyond my comprehension. Another…dimension? A much higher vibration than ours. Totally non-physical, but it's not angelic in nature. I think. Akin to angelic, maybe that's the concept, a first or second cousin. But life goes on evolving there even as it does here, and there they've just begun in a new series of cycles.”

  “In heaven?” Jae had heard from Londo about Terran concepts of heaven.

  “No, it's not a bardo, or between-lives cosmic kind of state. They are living their actual lives now in a world just as real as this one but so different—I wish I could get a handle on it. Going ahead of you.”

  Jae considered. “And me? I'm going to join them when I die?”

  Lina asked. “It's your choice. If you wish to be with them, you can. If you want to remain in this dimension, to help or whatever, it's still your choice.”

  “So I'm supposed to teach now, is that it? Give up the Legion and teach? How? And what exactly?”

  Lina appeared to ask and look puzzled. She asked again and still looked puzzled, but smiled through it. “The line they're giving me is this: 'Don't quit your day job.' Do you understand the concept? That you can teach, but shouldn't give up what I assume is the Legion? Hang on… Uh huh. Okay. Say that part again?” She paused.

  “They say that you'll know what to teach when it comes that you have to, that you'll recognize the opportunity. It will be as obvious as if a ton of bricks had fallen on you. Do you understand bricks?”

  “Bricks. Yes.”

  “There are three planets… I don't get it. Three worlds that you'll specialize in, or maybe live on. It's unclear. You're definitely going to move, but this is something else. Oh. They're being deliberately vague. They're shutting a door to that information and locking it away. Showing me that they have the key and I don't, nyah, nyah. In a nice way.”

  Sheepishly she shrugged. “Sorry. Can't help you in that department. I've heard of that happening to other people, and they've always said thank goodness they didn't know at the time, that things turned out for the best because they didn't.”

  Jae scowled before his mask of indifference fell back into place. “All right. I'll know what I'm supposed to do when I'm supposed to do it, and I shouldn't leave the Legion, right?”

  “Probably not. Free will is always up to you, of course,” Lina added quickly. Many people didn't realize that part. “This is just advice.”

  “Is there anything else they can tell me about the future?”

  She asked and then laughed when she heard the response. “I'm sorry. It's just so clichéd, and they're laughing, too. A new love, new job, new home, a new life. Happiness, if you will embrace it. It depends on your attitude.

  “Hang on to the hate and fear that you have brought into your life, and it will continue miserably, maybe even…” she paused and tried to push away the gruesome image of Jae lying in some empty room, his wrists slit and the blood pooling everywhere, “worse than that.

  “Set about to rid yourself of the darker emotions, to grasp what life has to offer and what you have to offer life, and…” Oh, that was so much better! No image, but a wonderful feeling blossomed within her like a rainbow, like spring after a hard winter. “Well, fulfillment awaits. Your happily ever after. The stuf
f that dreams are made of.”

  Even Jae had to smile at that. “I suppose I want to make the better of the two choices. Do they have any ideas how I can get rid of my, ah, darker emotions?”

  “Three minutes,” Wilder warned.

  “Right,” Lina said. “Let's get the Higher Self involved here, okay, guys? And how about a guardian angel or two? Ah, there they are, in the crowd.” She paused for a half-minute, communicating. “You're kidding,” she said. “Say that again. I must not have gotten that right.” Pause. “Tell me three times; I can be stupid.” Pause. “Okay, got it. Yes, I'll tell him. Thank you. Thank you all for the information. Good bye.”

  She blinked, clearly coming back to the here and now as Jae waited expectantly. “Well?”

  She gave an embarrassed little laugh. “I don't know what it means, but they kept saying it over and over. 'Tell him to stick around Londo and you,' they said.”

  “Londo…and you?” Jae asked, his head tilting to the side.

  “That's what they said. I repeat, I don't know why. Sorry. Sometimes they can be very strange that way. Sometimes they seem to get a kick out of being mysterious.”

  Jae pushed back in his chair, his gaze far away. “Well. Good enough. Thanks. You've given me a lot to think about.”

  Lina couldn't tell him about the blood. Don't alarm the client! Still, she had to make sure that he kept on the right path. When she left here to go back to Earth, she'd have to arrange for someone to watch Jae. Londo might have some ideas.

  Had she come all the way to Sarastor to rescue Lon and then see his friend die?

  Chapter 11

  Wilder switched off his recording instruments with a wiggle of two ringed fingers. “It's not every day I get a live event to add to my anthropological section on extant superstitions. Although after yesterday I rather expected a few more fireworks. It was a very vague reading,” he decided.

  “I wouldn't say that,” Jae said. Thoughtfully, he scratched his neck. “I wouldn't say that at all.”

  “Lina, you'd read about Feith being destroyed.”

  She was used to skeptics. “I never got that far in the personal histories. I was going to go back, but I fell asleep.”

  “Then Londo must have told you.”

  “The only name from here that Londo mentioned was yours.” She gave Jae as much of an apologetic grimace as her swollen face would allow. “We were attacked right after that,” she explained.

  Too quickly, Jae grinned at the consternation on Wiley's face. “She's got you. Face the facts. Besides, I remember this kind of work back when Feith was alive. People did it all the time for advice and communications. It was as normal as breakfast. Anyone else hungry?”

  “That's the only hard fact I can affirm right now,” Wiley declared. “Let's get the food units up and running. Any preferences?” He rose from his chair and looked at Lina expectantly.

  Her stomach overruled the shock of the death vision. Jae will be all right. We'll see to it. A quick breakfast wouldn't hinder Lon's healing, and she needed the fuel. And something to drink. You'd think a lab of this size would have a water fountain somewhere!

  “If it's not any trouble, I became a vegetarian about two days ago,” she said.

  “We can cater to that easily. Two days—”

  “When I became a teleporter. A lot of things happened then.” Her eyes automatically went to Londo, who was still sleeping soundly in the large room. How she needed to talk with him!

  “He'll be out for another few hours,” Wiley said, following her gaze. “Oh, yes. Jae, Lina says to turn down the happy bones.”

  “The what?”

  Lina frowned at Wiley. “I think I said that the bones were very happy doing what Jae told them to do, but that he should return them to normal working condition now.”

  “Happy bones.” Wiley shook his head and made a note on his notepadd.

  Jae peered over his shoulder at what he was writing. “I wouldn't say that either,” he commented about the note.

  “But you would agree to the phrase 'happy bones'?”

  Jae shrugged. “Well, they are.” He went to Londo's bed and held his arms over him for a minute, two minutes, as the other two watched from the break room.

  “Can you tell what he's doing?” Wiley quietly asked Lina.

  “I can almost hear it,” she told him. “I don't want to ask Lon's body. When I tried that before, Jae said I was interfering.”

  “You say he's talking to…what?”

  Lina turned to him. “Is there some reason he hasn't told you himself?” she asked.

  “The Feithi were always secretive about how their abilities worked.”

  “Well then, if Jae decides that you should know, I suppose he should be the one to tell you.”

  Wiley grunted.

  A food dispenser in the cozy nook—too bad there wasn't one for clothing—produced a breakfast of super-chewy granola. Jae explained to Lina that it was a favorite of his. Wiley stuck to a cream of wheat lookalike that went down fast, so he could get back to his endless studies and experiments.

  Jae showed her how to use the laundry in the bathroom; her clothes could cycle through and be ready by the time she finished a water shower. She was rather leery of the thing he referred to as a sonic shower. Supposedly it was a lot quicker than water and involved that pancake thing somehow, but to Lina's mind quicker was not necessarily better, and she'd had enough of loud noises yesterday. Besides, the hot water soothed many of her overall aches, though it didn't wash away the goo. The process merely made the goo cleaner.

  All ablutions finished and her hair in its usual, neat single braid, she sat in a tailor position on her bed table while Jae took his turn in the bathroom. Lina used the energy of Sarastor to clear out the vibrational debris left in the lab from yesterday. Her teachers had always taught her to keep her space clean, but she had been sorely remiss last night. Of course, there had been good reason for it.

  Wiley walked past, absorbed in his screens.

  She asked, “Do you have any white candles?” Then she had to explain candles.

  “This is a state-of-the-art laboratory!” He acted as if she'd insulted him. Wiley gestured at the general ambiance of light and the places at desk stations where focused light came from nowhere, like she'd never seen anything electrical before.

  “Thanks anyway.” Lina tucked her robe tighter around her cold feet. She placed angels in the corners of the lab for protection, imagining them holding their own candles. The angels who had positioned themselves around Londo the day before, nodded approval. She could sense their link with Raphael, who usually appeared in healing ceremonies, even though they must be light-years from Earth. Well, what did distance matter, anyway?

  She meditated for ten minutes to ground and calm herself, and then checked on Londo. He was so much better, she could hardly believe the difference in the signs. Communing with the angels in attendance, she was told there should be a special ceremony after the Kolaimni.

  She began to panic. Her Kolaimni textbook with all the non-standard ceremonies was back on Earth. Only when the angels assured her that she could channel it satisfactorily did she calm down.

  As Wiley's baseball-sized recorders hovered silently around her, Lina got through half Lon's chakras this time before she had to clear her energies. The other half went as well. She tried to explain things to Wiley as she went, but found that her words dragged farther and farther apart as her attention was rightfully diverted to what she was doing. At last she shut up and just did her work.

  Wiley and Jae sat at their station watching monitors recalibrated since the morning's experiments. An occasional exclamation told Lina that they must see what she was doing. She was curious to see it herself.

  But she had to focus to strengthen Lon's etheric field. She pictured the etheric as a complicated blue web comprising the energies and memories holding the physical body together in perfect health. Remind the cells of their optimum function, of their connections wi
th each other. The cells dazedly began to link in. She didn't have Jae or Wiley turn Londo for fear of interfering in the process. Instead, she worked on his back by intent.

  But it was taking so long! She was trying to be so careful with precious Londo. The shots were wearing off and she was so, so tired and achy.

  Jae came up behind her. “Lean on me if you have to,” he said quietly and reached out to steady her.

  The shock of the stranger's touch triggered her phobia.

  “Easy,” Jae told her as she jumped.

  “I'm sorry.” She gritted her teeth as she held back the white wall of fear that had so unexpectedly appeared. “Please don't touch me. Please!”

  He backed away hurriedly. “I'm sorry,” she said again. He'd just been trying to help. Damned fear! She shook the unwelcome energy out of her arms and returned to work.

  It was just before the final ceremony, which would have roused him anyway, that Londo woke. He watched her as she stood with her hands raised toward the heavens, her feet in almost fourth ballet position. She chanted as she channeled, speaking a language she didn't understand. The translator hovering next to her didn't know it, either. Then the chant became a song as pink energy streamed down to fill Londo, who lay back trying to feel the extent of it all.

  “Did I miss the dead chicken?” Lon asked her lazily when she appeared to have finished.

  “We're sending out for it later,” Lina replied. “You want extra crispy or original recipe?” Lon was back, this time for good! The tension that had held her together suddenly released.

  She caught herself from sinking to her knees. Instead she stepped back from the table to finish properly: she shook out her arms, her left one very gingerly. The pain-killers had stopped working. Right now perhaps amputation was the best solution. She had to grit her teeth with each movement. Hot electric knives vibrated up and down every nerve she had left. To make matters worse, her back had begun to sear down to her bones.

  It took intense concentration to imagine hoses from Sarastor rising to cover her arms and suck the excess energy of the healing from her like a vacuum cleaner. Then she had to attend to clearing the room's vibrations.