Page 20 of The Space Traveller's Lover
“He happened to be in my path. Shaillah. You’ll find out when you get to know me. I do things my way.”
“Who are you?” she demands while expectantly gazing at him.
Rothwen gently wipes away her tears, his eyes glinting with unashamed desire. “Right now, Shaillah, I’m nothing more than your humble servant.”
CHAPTER 10
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.
