Page 9 of Spectral Seas (Spectral Worlds #2)

L ETA FILLED THE glass kettle with water then placed it on the conduction plate at the back of the counter. On contact, the plate grew black, and the circumference of the kettle lit neon green.

“Not sleeping either?” Abby asked from the door.

“You know,” said Leta. “Even though I know that the monochromatic green of Viridis doesn’t contain red light, and that when the hot plate heats up it’s going to be black because red objects only reflect red light and absorb all other colors, I’m still a bit thrown that it’s not red. Yet yellow a combination of red and green, should appear green but in Viridis appears yellow.” She grabbed two white cups from the back of the counter. “And white,” she said holding up the cups. “There shouldn’t be anything white here yet—”

“Well technically the white is a light green,” said Abby. “It’s your brain that makes it white.”

Leta smirked. “I’m just saying that reading about a plane, or a ritual for that matter, is not the quite the same as seeing it for yourself. ”

“That dinner was quite mellow,” said Abby. He raised one brow and added, “There were no armaments.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No. On my last visit there were feats of marksmanship—with live targets.”

“Unreal.” She sniffed a jar of shredded tea leaves, returned it to its place on the shelf, then opened another. “This one seems minty,” she shook the jar and sniffed a second time. “Luxurious. I think I’ll try it. Do you want to smell some of these?”

“No. I’ll have what you’re having.”

Leta scooped some of the tea she’d chosen into two sphere infusers then dropped one into each of the cups. The bubbles that had quickly formed at the bottom of the kettle began to rise and soon raced to a vigorous boil. The neon green ring surrounding the kettle turned deep black, and with a click, the conduction plate switched off. She poured the water, rested the kettle on a trivet, then brought the cups to the table to steep.

“Thank you,” said Abby. He lifted the infuser’s delicate chain and dangled the tea leaf filled sphere midway up the cup. Slowly, he bobbed his hand up and down.

“You know,” she said as she joined him at the table, “bouncing the tea doesn’t do a thing.”

“Really?”

“Tea diffusion has more to do with the material of the infuser and the type of tea leaf. Dunking has no impact on flavor or diffusion speed.”

“Ah. But dunking gives you something to do. The perception of time decreases if you are dunking.”

Leta gazed at her steeping tea for a few seconds then she too began bobbing her infuser.

“See?” he said.

“Yeah. I like it. ”

“The dinner, was that the only thing?”

“The only thing?” she repeated.

“Was that the only thing keeping you up?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“It’s silly really.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s about when you touched me.”

“Oh,” said Abby. “It wasn’t—I mean I didn’t—”

“No, no. I know it wasn’t. I mean, you’re always a gentleman. I understand you needed to bring me down spectrum.”

“Yes. Exactly. I only did that to—”

“It’s that you’re able to do that. No one else can. No one that I’m aware of. And we still haven’t talked about what happened on Arcadia. When you touched those Maro and they—”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes,” said Leta. “That’s a word one could use.”

“You’re worried I’d do that to you?”

“No… Well… Yes.”

“I would never do that.”

“But do you even have any control?”

“Sure.”

Abby sized up her reaction.

“What?” he asked. “You don’t believe me?”

“Of course. I believe you mean what you’re saying. It’s just that—I don’t like the vulnerability.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But if we’re going to continue to work together, you have to know that, for your own safety if for anything else, I’m compelled to use whatever this is.”

Leta looked past his shoulder. “Do it now. ”

“What? Are you serious?”

“I’m not joking, Abby. Behind you. Look behind you!”

Abby swung his head toward the door. Creeping in from the floor of the hall was a moss colored mist.

“Nine planes,” he said. “The habitat has been compromised.”

Abby focused on the thick spreading fog with his ocular implants. A scarlet augment overlay the mist and to the right appeared three sets of rapidly cycling numbers. Upon completion of their calculation, each of the numbers mapped to a coordinate. When the third number set, the three blinked together, along with the designation of the gas and a hazard material warning.

“The gas,” he said. “It’s poison.”

“Can we go down spectrum?”

“That only works where there’s oxygen. We go down from here and we’ll hit the Viridian atmosphere. We have to get to the suits.”

Abby grabbed a towel from the counter and handed it to Leta. “Hold this over your nose and mouth,” he said, then opened the drawers of the cabinet beneath, one after another, until he found one containing more towels. He snapped one up for himself, covered his mouth, then led Leta out into the hallway toward the habitat airlock. When they reached the door, he slammed the huge release button to the side. But the door didn’t open. Instead, the habitat was flooded with the sound of a klaxon and the flash of an emerald emergency light.

Fire ripped up through Abby’s chest and he began to cough. The suits were just on the other side of the glass door, a door that wouldn’t open, and on the other side of the airlock, beyond the outer door, stood Prince Uhggwa.

~*~