The Second Wave (28 page)

She sneezed, a harsh sound in the eerie
winter silence of the forest. Taking her by the hand, he led her
back to the house before she could catch a cold.

* * * *

Time, for lack of a better fitting metaphor,
is the endless breathing in and out of the universe. It has not one
direction, but curls and unfolds in a pattern too strange for us to
understand or make sense of. It turns and twists seemingly at
random. It exists in its own space, completely independent,
oblivious even to its surroundings.

But there are places that are more
perceptive, places with an underlying understanding of the
universe; it is in such places where time strikes up an unusual
fellowship, where it abides by other rules. In places like this,
time exists not for its own sake, but as the outcome of a
relationship. It acts as a protection mechanism that makes sure
nothing harms the entity beneath the surface.

* * * *

“This is incredible, Peter!” Luke repeated
for at least the fifth time that afternoon; for more than the fifth
time his husband completely ignored him. Peter gazed into space,
seeing nothing but random thoughts before his mind’s eye.

“I mean,” Luke continued excitedly. “Good
grief—it explains…almost everything!”

To counteract Peter’s stoic silence, Luke
began walking around the table, where various soil samples and
microscopes were still set up. They spent several hours examining
the various samples. Then they re-examined them for a couple of
hours. And in some cases they re-examined the results of their
re-examination again, just to be sure. The results never changed,
but their excitement grew with every confirmation of their
findings.

More for his own benefit than for Peter’s,
Luke ranted on, “You do remember the mayor’s speech about there
having been another settlement that mysteriously vanished before we
came here?! Well, no wonder no one has found any traces of
them—whatever has happened to them happened over four-hundred
thousand years ago. They could have built a whole civilisation in
that time. Or gone extinct. Maybe even both, if they tried hard
enough.”

Peter finally decided to turn the monologue
into a conversation and replied, “It explains the subway station
and the drawings we found in those caves.”

“And the different ages of some of the
stones,” Luke added.

“The random unrelated time events.”

Luke nodded. Even those. “This whole place
seems to be one big R.U.T.E.” he murmured.

What they had painstakingly found out was
that the soil samples taken before the first wave settlers had come
to this planet were several hundred thousand years younger than the
samples taken a couple of days ago. Despite the fact that only five
years and a few months should lie between them.

“So what happened?” Luke asked, yet answered
his own question in the same breath. “When the wormhole connection
broke the first time, this place must have got caught in one
gigantic time pocket. For the settlers a couple of hundred thousand
years passed, while back on Earth only a few weeks went by. Then
when the connection broke a second time, five years passed on
Alternearth, but mere hours on Earth.”

“We’ll have to get more accurate data to find
out if the time difference on both planets stayed the same during
the two events.” Peter said.

“Maybe Mayor Rochester has more information,”
suggested Luke. They had to see him anyway and tell him about their
findings. If the time difference was stable and the connection
broke again, they could calculate how much time elapsed on the
other side.

“I wonder if the random unrelated time events
caused the wormhole connection to break, or if the wormhole created
the events in the first place,” Peter mused quietly. He took his
coat and scarf that Luke handed to him, then wrapped himself
securely in several layers of wool. He had missed the spectacle of
the harbingers and thus the unusually long winter didn’t occur to
him as strange yet; even though Luke complained about the cold on
an almost daily basis. Luke was happiest on hot, sunny days, now
that they had a climate that provided them with real weather.
Personally, Peter thought everything was better than atmospheric
storms, just as everything was better with Luke around. He made
sure to tell him that on their way through the village and was
pleased to see the ever so composed botanist blush—although, he
admitted to himself, that could have been the cold.

* * * *

The reason why people on Earth had put not
only a vast quantity of money but also tons of research into
wormhole technology, was that they had been to space and found it
was hardly worth the satellites they had built. Interested to see
what lay beyond, and always eager to find new homes, people sent
satellites to various planets in the milky way, just to get a set
of disappointing data that, according to the deLuca twins,
translated into, “Space is boring!” And as there were no habitable
planets in reach and not enough bling to build huge space stations
to populate, scientists started looking into passageways to
parallel universes.

What started out as curiosity quickly became
a necessity as Earth began its rapid decline around that time. It
got worse and worse, just as wormhole technology got better and
manageable. But, as is so often the case, nobody saw the
connection. And as mankind prepared to leave, Earth lapsed into
what, had it been human, would have been called a coma.

* * * *

It was but one suitcase Elizabeth Burke
packed one Sunday morning. One toothbrush she wrapped in one towel,
one pair of slippers she packed next to one night gown. There was
no paperwork left to be done, no friends in her life to visit one
last time.

Quietly she left the apartment, careful not
to wake Apple, with whom she had no love left to share after all
the layers of superficial banter had been lifted. As it turned out,
they had each seen in the other one the trophy wife they thought
they needed in their life. And while Apple still thought she needed
one, Elizabeth had left this kind of life behind. It was not who
she was anymore.

It hurt less than it probably should have,
she contemplated. She waved to Meister Wang, who never seemed to
leave his Takeaway, and hailed a Rikscha cab. She was not going
back to Alternearth, but she was determined to leave Rome, the
Headquarters and her old life. She was going back to Lamanai, the
home of her ancestors. There, the great family estate was being run
by helpers ever since Elizabeth’s parents had died. They were
looking forward to have a head of house again, and Elisabeth was
looking forward to make peace with her heritage. Lamanai was the
smallest village, far away from what people called civilization
these days. It was unprotected, but due to some unique geological
features it was rarely haunted by storms. Some farms amidst ancient
ruins, Lamanai was the epitome of the middle of nowhere; less
people lived there than on Alternearth. To Elizabeth it sounded
like the perfect place to start over.

While Elizabeth made for her own future,
General Fatique stood in his office in the Headquarters like a
tourist who had lost his group. He felt like one, too, he had to
admit. Without Elizabeth the room seemed oddly useless. The desk
was too untidy, the labels on the files in the shelves meant
nothing to him and his telephone rang five times in as many
minutes; people asking about things he didn’t even know they had
trained staff for. Elizabeth had done more than just her duty, and
although he had always felt uncomfortable in her stern, humourless
presence, he absolutely needed her to manage the daily
workload.

A quick knock on the door, and the head of
one of the engineers, Greta, popped in, informing him of news.

“What kind of news? Is it about the chocolate
party in the cafeteria again? Are they still at it?”

“They are,” Greta confirmed. “But this is
about something else. Heath Rochester is here to see you. Something
about the age of Alternearth—I didn’t catch the rest, he’s out of
sorts a bit.”

“Out of sorts, eh? Well, that calls for
immediate action. Send him in please. And would you be so kind as
to go by the party and get us some cake.”

Greta nodded, her head disappeared. Heath
Rochester was a calm, rational man, so whatever happened must be
big. He hoped it was better news than the information that
Alternearth was moving off its course. To be honest, General
Fatique still wasn’t sure what to make of this particular
information.

* * * *

Once they were back at his house, John tucked
Eugenia in bed. She protested, albeit feebly. He flopped down on a
chair opposite the bed, content in watching her drink warmed up
ginger soup from a bowl. From time to time he flinched in sympathy
when she swallowed the occasional piece of ginger root.

“It tastes like someone going mad,” she
stated in between sips.

John agreed. “I know it is hardly your
favorite dish, but it will help you get well completely.”

“Dr. Paige comes tonight,” she said, just
remembering. The sudden change of subject didn’t even strike him as
odd anymore. Eugenia’s mind leapt from thought to thought in a
manner that was too nausea inducing to understand anyway.

“I have told her not to,” he replied
solemnly. It wasn’t necessary for the doctor to check on Eugenia
every day anymore. And to be honest with himself, he didn’t like
the way Summer Paige acted like a mother towards Eugenia and made
John feel like an intruder.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her watch
him intently before she, saddened to some degree, softly announced,
“I wish I could see into your mind like I did before. It is so
alone in here.”

He didn’t reply to it, but treated her to a
rare, honest smile.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. Her
eyes hungrily took all of him in, as if she were scared she might
miss the minutest of movements on his face. The bowl rested in her
hands, completely forgotten by now.

“I’m thinking about cupboards, if you must
know,” he replied. Then, before she would ask more and before the
bowl with the remaining soup would fall out of her hands and topple
to the ground, he got up and gently placed it on the nightstand, so
she had her hands free when he kissed her.

* * * *

Her arms immediately went up around his neck.
Her body, lithe and slender, pressed itself against his. John,
using one hand to give himself leverage, softly pressed her back
and down onto the bed with the other, until she was lying
underneath him; all flushed cheeks and heavy breathing. It happened
before he could stop himself, it came quite natural to both of
them, as if their bodies had just been waiting for something like
this to happen.

For a moment he was unable to move. He
allowed himself to get lost in the woman he had grown so used to
having around. If he let go now, whatever strange connection
already existed between them would grow unfathomably stronger, he
was certain of that. He could barely stay away from her as it was,
a deeper bond frightened him to some extent. But he also knew he
had no control over it anymore anyway. It was the next logical step
for them to take; if he tried to fight it, he’d end up losing. A
part of him was scared, a part of him longed to possess her and
never let go of her again, and one part would always think of
running away.

He lowered himself so their lips met again
and they kissed until she gasped for air and her muscles tensed
under her clothes. All the while he never closed his eyes but kept
looking at her through his lashes, ever watchful.

“What are you thinking now?” she whispered
when she couldn’t take his silent gazes anymore.

“Nothing that makes sense,” came the hoarse
reply.

She smiled. “I will love to hear about it all
the more then.”

Her fingers, distracting on his skin, traced
invisible patterns on his face while he told her in great detail
about what was on his mind this very moment. It didn’t make sense,
not even to him. It was all about fighting and killing, passion and
desire, darkness and cupboards and home. He lost his train of
thought more than once, and was relieved when she finally
interrupted him, “Do you know what my favorite sound is?”

“Please say it’s me,” he groaned, not too
proud to beg. The words tasted of unshed tears on his tongue.

“It is you.”

This time he allowed the kiss to be hungry
and sloppy. He knew he was overwhelming her, but he had been
holding back for weeks, his patience was falling to pieces with
every touch. Especially with her skin against his like this, her
legs trapped between his and soft whimpers escaping her throat. He
kissed a wet trail across her jaw up to her ear, into which he
breathed, “Stop me now, or I will drive you mad tonight, woman.” As
if it were in his power to put an end to this. She didn’t stop
him.

* * * *

The next morning the snow was gone. Night had
turned it into puddles, seemingly by magic. The mud roads of the
village resembled dirty streams that aimlessly roamed the ground,
ever unable to find their way to the sea. The landscape that had
glistened with snow and ice mere hours earlier was now appearing in
the light brown dress of late winter. The trees were free of their
powdery cloaks, the white blanket was lifted off the ground. The
water that dripped from the branches and formed tiny oceans on the
thawing earth was the last witness of winter.

It that was only the beginning, though. The
temperature didn’t cease rising. By breakfast it was so warm that
the puddles on the ground began to emit a soft fog as the water in
them vaporized. By noon the earth was dry again and the air damp
and hot. The children swapped their scarves and gloves after school
for shorts and skirts. People went swimming in the nearest lake in
the afternoon. It felt like summer and it wasn’t even spring
yet.