The Four Faces Of Rath

Ta'lan

Chapter 68

LXVIII

Ta'lan unfolded the crumpled note that Max had given her and read it… then she turned it around several times aimlessly, as though thinking about it, and read it again. After several minutes, she folded it back up carefully, smoothed it out with her hand, and handed it back to Max.

"You say this was given to you by me… only in another dimension… my double?"

Max nodded. "Yes… Exactly."

Ta'lan stood up and walked around Max and Michael then turned and looked at them…

"I must say, I was never convinced that things like alternate dimensions really existed. This is… well… extraordinary if it is true." Then, apparently remembering that Max was their king, she quickly added, "I'm not saying that it's not true, of course, only that it is… extraordinary."

"We understand," Liz said. "We thought the same thing. We didn't know until recently that alternate dimensions existed either. I mean… it's always been in the realm of possibility… a theory. But no one had ever proved it… well… that we know of anyway."

Without replying, except with a slight wave of her hand, Ta'lan unexpectedly walked into the next room and returned with a tray of drinks. She passed the tray around, and each one took one of the thin, fourteen-inch tall, one-inch wide high-fluted glasses filled with a bluish-amber liquid. The odd, constantly color-changing liquid was pretty… perhaps even appealing… in a strange, alien way.

This is a Ke'cje drink called da'nish," Ta'lan said, as they each took a glass from the tray. "It is quite good. You will like it."

Ta'lan watched, but only Kyle took a drink. The others sat with their drinks in their hands, waiting.

"Max, this is really good," Kyle said enthusiastically, taking another sip. "Try it!"

"I would wait if I were you, Kyle," Michael said.

"This is too good to wa… wait," Kyle said, already beginning to slur his words.

"Why don't all of you drink," Ta'lan asked with an innocent smile.

"We're waiting for cookies," Michael replied.

"Qnist'as," Liz corrected.

"Micha… Mi-chael!" Kyle slurred, "That's rude, man! You don… don… don't go iv somewuz house 'n jus' ask for coo… cookies. Ha… hav some mannnners."

"Qnist'as," Max replied, "Their called qnist'as. You don't drink da'nish without qnist'as, Kyle. They keep you from getting bombed… like you are now."

"Oh," Kyle replied with a giddy smile, taking yet another sip. "Now yoush tellsh me."

Ta'lan smiled and nodded then stood up and went back into the other room, reemerging momentarily with another tray, this one piled high with qnist'as.

"I was testing you," she said as she passed the tray around, "But I guess you know that. I had to be sure you really had been in a Ke'cje house and had not been tricked by another species of shapeshifters… some of the bad ones… especially the shadow dwellers. They're not Antarian."

Max nodded. "Kyle wasn't with us in the other dimension until we started back. His double was there, but our Kyle stayed here with his wife and all the kids when we went. We needed someone to stay behind and take care of things here. He didn't know about the da'nish or the qnist'as."

Kyle smiled and held his glass up in a toast, looking through the sometimes bluish, sometimes amber fluid with one eye closed and a big smile on his face.

"Eat your cookie, Kyle," Maria said, sticking one of the qnist'as in his mouth. Kyle sputtered but chewed the cookie and swallowed it. Within seconds, a change began to come over him, as he began to sober up, and his face reddened a bit as he suddenly realized that everyone was looking at him…

"What happened? Did I do something to embarrass myself?"

Liz smiled and shook her head. "No. You just got a little drowsy for a moment there, Kyle. You have to eat the qnist'as with your da'nish or you wind up in la-la-land."

"Oh." Kyle heaved a cautious sigh of relief, apparently not quite remembering what he had or had not just done. "That's strong stuff, isn't it?" he said, taking another bite of qnist'a then another sip of his da'nish. "It's really good, though."

The others all ate one of the qnist'as then took a sip of the bluish-amber fluid.

"It is good," Liz agreed. "Just don't ever forget the qnist'as."

"I won't ever again," Kyle said with a sheepish grin. "Trust me on that!"

"So explain to me exactly how you came to meet my double in this other dimension," Ta'lan said, sitting back down to listen. "It is unusual for outsiders to come here to the Ke'cje valley… and when they do, they usually do not remember anything when they leave."

"Not if they drink some of that da'nish," Kyle nodded.

"The Qu'rosk trees," Liz said. "It's the Qu'rosk trees. They're everywhere. They're beautiful but intoxicating to outsiders."

"Is everything here intoxicating," Kyle asked.

Ta'lan smiled and shook her head.

"Just the da'nish… and the flowers on the trees. Their fragrance gives everyone a feeling of well-being. The Ke'cje are accustomed to it, and we can tolerate it, but outsiders become somewhat giddy and talkative. They forget where they are. Once they have breathed the fragrance for a while, everyone talks. And when they leave, they forget where they have been. But we do not get many visitors. In this valley, we are well-protected by high surrounding cliffs on every side."

"How do you get out, then," Kyle asked.

"We fly."

"Fly? Oh, right… you can shapeshift. Are we going to forget we were here when we leave?"

Ta'lan shook her head again. "Not if you do not breathe the fragrance of the Qu'rosk trees' flowers outside for very long. Now tell me how you met my double in the other dimension."

"Well," Max said, setting his glass down on the tray, "it was Rahn who led us there… here… to the Ke'cje valley."

"Rahn!" Ta'lan exclaimed.

Momentarily startled by Ta'lan's reaction, Max stopped talking.

"Go on, please," Ta'lan coaxed.

"Don't be mad at Rahn," Max said. "He was helping me… my double, I mean… to get his kingdom back."

"I'm not mad at Rahn," Ta'lan said. "I'm sad. When you mentioned Rahn's name, my heart jumped. He is… was… like a son to me. I practically raised him myself. I taught him everything he knows. And I haven't seen him in… I think it's been sixty… seventy years now. Rahn would have contacted me before now if he had been able to. I can only assume…"

Ta'lan's voice trailed off, and her eyes misted up.

"Omigod," Liz said softly, touching Max on the arm. "Max, do you think…"

"…that he's still a prisoner on the base back on earth?" Max asked, finishing Liz's sentence for her. "I don't know. Our doubles rescued him in the other dimension. In our dimension, we never did."

Liz looked at Maria, and both of them sat in stunned silence, their mouths open for several moments.

"We can't abandon Rahn," Maria said. "He helped us so much… He's like… one of us."

"This Rahn doesn't even know us," Michael pointed out quite correctly, though no one there felt that to be the case after all they had been through with his double in the other dimension. Even Michael seemed to be trying to convince himself of it… and not very successfully.

"Well we just got back from a very long and difficult trip," Max said. "I guess we could plan a rescue mission, though. I'll ask Varec how long it would take the New Granolith to get to earth at the fastest speed."

"We don't need to do that," Liz said. "We're in our own dimension. The spheres will work here."

Maria's eyes lit up, and a smile came over her face.

"I'll be the one to go," Michael said. "I can rescue him if things get hairy."

"There won't be anything to get hairy," Liz replied confidently. "I'll go. All I have to do is pop into his cell, get him, and bring him back. They'll never even know where he went."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Michael objected. "I should be the one to go. You and Max are needed here."

"Oh, like, and you're not?" Liz asked defiantly. "Michael, you're needed here as much as anybody… much more than I'm needed…"

"I wouldn't go that far," Max said with a half smile. "No offense Michael."

"None taken."

"I thought Dan Klein ended all that crazy alien hunting stuff in our dimension after the president made him the head of the agency," Alex said. "Do you really think they could still be holding someone on the base and no one knows about it?"

Max nodded solemnly. "I think it's possible. Dan wouldn't even have to know about it. The president wouldn't even have to know about it. Those guys didn't answer to anyone. They were a renegade unit. They thought they were saving the world. Zwolinski may have been changed when Michael went back to the past, but there was that FBI guy, Pierce, and there were others who were just as bad who were part of that whole thing. I think it's possible. We won't know for sure until we go there and find out."

Michael turned around to Liz to insist that she give him control of the sphere, but at that moment, Liz stepped through the portal, which she had quietly called while the others were talking. As the portal closed up behind her, Liz said simply, "Take me to Rahn."

In her haste to rescue a friend, Liz hadn't followed her own cardinal rule: use the sphere of visions first to see where you may be going. Liz stepped out of the portal only to find herself looking into a very bright light. For a moment, she was blinded by it, but then she made out some things around her… It looked like a lab of some kind. The walls were bare and white. And under the center of the lights lay a man on a gurney. He appeared to be connected to various different wires and devices, and she couldn't tell if he was alive or dead. Liz stepped forward to find out, and that's when something hit her from behind… hard. The room spun momentarily, as she collapsed to her knees then to the floor and the bright lights disappeared into darkness. As she lay there in a state of semi-consciousness, she vaguely heard voices around her…

"Where did she come from?"

"I don't know. She just appeared out of nowhere… She must have made herself invisible to get in."

"You think she's one of them? She may have been sent to rescue him. Could she be one of his people?"

There was no answer from the second man.

"Only one way to find out, I guess," the first voice said. "This guy over here's never been any use to us. Almost seventy years of shock treatments, probes… I've even removed bits of his organs… and he still won't tell us anything or do anything that's nonhuman at all… except for the fact that he's lasted this long and doesn't look a day older than when he was brought in here… or so they tell me… I wasn't even born then myself."

"I'm telling you," the second voice said, "He doesn't understand our language."

"He understands," the first voice said confidently, "He understands. He's just stubborn. Let's see what it will take to get this one to talk."

"And if she doesn't?"

There was a pause, then the first man replied, "We dissect her… piece by piece. One way or the other, I'm getting something out of this one."

"Oh my God," Liz thought with a sick feeling, as she drifted into unconsciousness, "The white room. What have I done?"

tbc