Page 12 of The Space Traveller's Lover
THE PASSAGE
As the twin suns rise, your life will begin anew.
“Look closely at the data, Shaillah. What do you see?” Rothwen asks.
“I see unintelligible symbols.” Mesmerised, she stares at the packed matrix of three-dimensional glyphs, each one forming a unique geometrical shape, perfectly aligned throughout the volume of a giant cube, floating over her.
“They describe your biological fingerprint,” he explains, “each edge, angle, and colour combination defines your molecular signature in every cell type.”
“Why are you showing me this?” she asks without taking her eyes off the glowing image, as more finely drawn details keep revealing themselves.
Rothwen points at another block of symbols starting to form next to the first one. The cubes move closer together and merge, every edge and node brightening as they superimpose onto each other. She watches the symbols blinking against the dark background, every pulse pounding on her puzzled mind.
“As you can see, every signature code in each block closely matches!” Rothwen explains, “There are some black markers on the incompatible zones, but we can deal with those later.”
“And the second block is?”
“The second one is the Rom-Ghenshar biological fingerprint! ”
“So, my body … is now different. It was hijacked—changed—without my permission?” She stares reproachingly at Rothwen.
“This is not an option, Shaillah,” he impassively replies. “It’s long been decided.”
Erin struggles to gather her thoughts as Rothwen speaks, but the more she tries to comprehend, the more confused she feels. She purses her lips while tilting her head backwards in despair. Rothwen places her hands on his chest as he slowly takes her towards the back of the room.
“Let me take you into our world, Shaillah. Then—and only then—you’ll understand why you are here.” He pulls her by one hand and leads her into a downward flood-lit corridor.
There’s no use in struggling anymore. I’m exhausted , she thinks while breathing in deeply the thick, salty air. She resigns herself to follow him wherever he is taking her.
The long steep path seems to converge into a luminous point in the distance.
It looks like the entrance into another chamber , she thinks.
As they descend along the aisle, the bright green surroundings make her close her eyes, and the thickening atmosphere makes her gasp for air.
Every few steps, she peeps through her eyelids, closing them tightly again.
“Shaillah, you are doing well. We are nearly there,” he encourages as he leads her farther down, checking on her from time to time.
“Where are we?” she moans, tiptoeing behind him.
“Shaillah, you are entering our world.”
“Don’t call me Shaillah. My name is Erin,” she protests between breaths.
“Erin in the past, Shaillah from now on,” he counters.
She wheezes loudly to let him know she’s feeling very uncomfortable.
“You may struggle now. But you’ll be fine. I see your body is soon adapting to our atmosphere.”
“What’s your atmosphere anyway?” She fumbles her hands out of his grasp, feeling she cannot walk any further.
“Just a few more steps, and we reach our first gate.” He gently takes her hands, pulling her towards him, keeping a close watch on her reaction in case they have to turn back.
When Rothwen has her against his chest, he holds her in his strong arms as they sit on the floor. She buries her face under his shoulder .
“The ionised oxygen in our high-pressure atmosphere produces this green light and would destroy any foreign cell. Your body must absorb these higher energy levels before settling down.”
Rothwen keeps her in a protecting embrace while stroking her back and reassuring her. “You’re doing well, my brave Shaillah.”
Eventually, she feels her lungs expanding, supercharged with the rushing energising air. At last, she can start breathing deeply, unrestrained. When she opens her eyes, the surrounding aquamarine reflections bring her a soothing feeling.
A beautiful underwater world fills her field of view, its deep, dense waters confined behind a concave transparent wall.
Odd-looking fish with pointed serrated teeth and prickly fins, large-tentacled octopuses and cuttlefish, long-legged spiny crabs and colourful jellyfish swim erratically on the other side; their bodies sometimes crashing against the thick glass and then disappearing back into the dark background.
“Extraordinary!” she exclaims as she sits up straight, her face beaming in fascination. “I’ve never seen so many sea creatures at once!”
“They live down in these deep trenches,” he explains, “and they’re attracted to the light.”
“Where are we?”
“At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean,” he replies while she excitedly runs towards the all encircling underwater world.
She presses her hands against the smooth surface while walking along the curved glass barrier, closely inspecting the sea creatures’ peculiar bodies. Rothwen doesn’t interrupt her, watching her childish moves and admiring her curiosity.
She jumps high to reach the biggest jellyfish as if she is competing to be more agile than them.
Rothwen smiles, allowing himself some respite.
He knows she is at ease, at least for now.
All her fears and uncertainties are far from her mind.
But it’s no time to relax for him. The crucial tests are fast approaching as he prepares to take her through the most challenging passages yet.
At last, she manages to jump at the same height as any jellyfish that approaches. She is surprised at how nimble her muscles feel, never imagining she could be this fast.
“See what I can do?” She proudly shows off .
“I think you’re ready to go even farther,” he enticingly gazes at her, catching her as she falls from her last leap.
“To your domain?” she asks as he gently sets her down.
“Our domain, Shaillah. A whole new world. And our journey begins here.”
“It seems there’s no way out of here,” she muses while looking around.
“Are you sure? Shaillah, prepare to enter into your new world. We are going to pass through three gates—the gates that only a Rom-Ghenshar can enter. And the first one is here.”
“I don’t see any gates,” she says in a dismissive tone.
“Each gate takes us closer to our destination,” Rothwen continues, completely ignoring her scorn.
“Each one links into the next, like one-way locks.” He bends down and sweeps the floor with his index finger, revealing a thick circular line around them.
As he completes the circle, he stands up and holds her by her waist. The area under their feet suddenly judders and rises with a clicking sound before it starts descending directly into a tunnel, dragging them down.
She presses her head against his chest as they accelerate downwards, and a swirling feeling of weightlessness makes her stomach churn.
“Don’t be afraid,” Rothwen reassures her. “You’re doing fine. We are going down slowly as your body gets used to our atmosphere.”
“Slowly?” She ponders. It feels to her like they’re hurtling down through an abyss.
“Yes, slowly. We go faster in our crafts.”
“It’s very dark now,” she complains. “All I can see is your dark figure.”
“Yes, we’re going down the deepest sea trenches. You call them the Marianas.”
“How far down?”
“Stay still!” he whispers, tightening his protective hug around her.
As they continue shuttling down, Erin has completely lost the notion of time. Now and then, she sticks out her head and peers through the surrounding blackness, before hiding it again under his arms.
At last, she senses they are grinding to a halt as she starts discerning clearer patterns in her field of vision. The gleaming outlines of tall tapering pillars covered in stacks of mother-of-pearl rings shine through the undulating currents of a crystal-clear ocean .
“What are those towers?” She points towards the group of height-defying structures, rising imposingly from their sturdy metal trusses and surrounding an immense pearly white dome.
“Ah! you can see now into our infrared band!” Rothwen exclaims, his heartbeat racing in sheer expectation.
All that he meticulously planned and hoped for is now only two steps away.
“The towers?” he asks, appearing somewhat indifferent, “they are our robotics workshops.” Then, pointing ahead, he proudly adds, “We are going into the dome!”
Erin smiles as she looks back at Rothwen, relieved that, at last, their destination is within reach. Still, his hot-blooded yearning gaze pierces like a dagger right through her heart. The charged air sparkles as they keep staring at each other in an alluring hypnotising spell.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispers.
Her eyes glaze with uncontrolled desire as their lips are drawn to each other, fusing their bodies in a long-awaited kiss.
“I never felt like this before.” She gasps through a short pause, her pupils darting back and forth, longing for more.
“Me neither,” he admits.
“Rothwen, it feels like we’re meant to be together.”
“Every time you pass through one of our gates, Shaillah, you get closer to me,” he boasts, and then he kisses her for even longer, even more passionately.
The taste of him reminds her of her favourite cinnamon flakes; she engulfs herself in his sweetened musk, squeezing his face to make sure she is not dreaming.
A sudden jolt makes them break apart as the whole tunnel starts to vibrate with a humming sound.
“What’s that?” She asks, startled.
“Our second gate has arrived. It’s one of our scouting crafts,” he replies as Erin notices the arrowhead-shaped craft rising from the bottom of the tunnel, its orange spotlights continually flashing.
“Now, once inside our scouting-craft, you will be wholly within our environment. Then there’s one more gate to go. And we can celebrate your first successful transition.” He announces, his voice barely concealing his excitement .
The panel under their feet slides open, and they both fall into their seats. As the craft exits from the vertical tunnel and shoots towards the glistening, imposing compound, Shaillah expectantly looks ahead through the transparent deck while Rothwen keeps checking on her.
Well, it was sometimes frightening, but I’ve made it here , she thinks, feeling pleased with herself.
“You made it here because you are a Rom-Ghenshar,” Rothwen says.
Erin gives Rothwen a puzzled look, then frowns. She finds it both surprising and annoying that he knows exactly what she is thinking.
So, I am now a Rom-Ghenshar. Why did this happen? she thinks.
“It happened because I made it happen,” he boasts.
“Are you spying on my thoughts?” she protests.
“We all interconnect via our thoughts—on our fine-tuned brain network,” he explains to an increasingly frustrated Erin. “We can control their frequency and intensity, even choosing when to turn them off and on.”
“So that’s how you’re controlling me, is it?” she grumbles as she wriggles on her seat.
But Rothwen holds her arms down, keeping her firmly in her place. “It is how it is,” he bluntly replies, his eyes flashing in a warning glare. “You’ll get to know how it works … very soon. Don’t move.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she resignedly tilts her head back.
Suddenly, she hears a constant buzzing inside her head, getting louder and louder.
Her forehead throbs with an intense quickening pulse; she closes her eyes tightly, feeling her head spinning in a dizzying whirl.
She presses her hands firmly over her ears as they pop and feel as if about to burst with a high-pitched whistling sound.
Rothwen keeps a close impatient watch on her. He knows this passage will be swift, but it’s the most dangerous yet. Any second now, he will know whether the third and final step has succeeded, and with its success will come Shaillah’s first transition into his world.
As the intense humming finally disappears, an uncanny sense of tranquillity runs through her entire body. She feels as if she’s in a completely different state of mind, calmed and self-assured. She slowly looks back at Rothwen, and their eyes lock in flares of relief, triumph, and joy.