Page 23 of The Space Traveller's Lover
“We are connected. We are like one. The long wait is over!” Rothwen cheers, drawing her from her seat into his lap and hugging her tightly.
The lovers share their feelings and wishes without uttering a word while their fast-moving craft sifts through the towers and breaks seamlessly through the pressure-levelling shield and into the supple concave dome’s wall, grinding to a halt just off the sandy surface.
As the cockpit cover slides open over their heads, Erin stands up and welcomes the refreshing ocean smell. The swirling breeze caresses her face and hair as she eagerly scans the fascinating landscape under a tenuous radiance.Like transcending into a new dimension, I’m changing fast. I can feel it. It’s a new me … Shaillah.
Seya en(Welcome back).
Suan enjie(Always victorious).
Rothwen and Shaillah hear the messages from Kuzhma-Or and Athguer as they jump out of the craft and onto the moist sand.
She contemplates the stretching outline of rocky outcrops and rolling hills at each side of a vast shimmering pink ocean. “A sea within a sea within a sea,” she marvels.
The foamy waves keep pounding on the gravelled coast, rattling the tiny colourful gems peppering the shifting ground.
“What are we waiting for?” she asks as Rothwen stands motionless, purposely looking into the distance.
“Just wait,” he urges her.
As the shimmering mist glistens in rainbow-like hues, her expectation grows. With her polarised pupils, she focuses on an emerging glow breaking through the horizon. The bright, thin arc of a yellow disc floods the sky with its warm shafts of light, piercing through the thinning clouds. As the billowing globe keeps rising, it seems towant to pull the ocean up with it. When it finally hangs cleanly over the floodlit waters, the flickering rays of a second smaller red sun paint the horizon in deep crimson hues.
The two suns steadily ascend on the brightening opalescent sky, aligning in a perfect diagonal while burning the dense morning mist. A band of multicolour lines spread over the ocean surface as two beautiful broad double rainbows intersect across the rolling hills.
As Shaillah keeps admiring the unfolding colour-changing scene, a deep feeling of belonging overcomes her.This is your new world, Shaillah, she thinks while her mind is swept in a whirl of emotions.
She pulls Rothwen’s hand to make him look back at her.
“So beautiful!” she cheers as she impulsively jumps up onto his hips.
“I wanted you to admire the twin sunrise of Rom and Ghenshar,” Rothwen tells her with a proud smile.
He holds her up to his face and starts kissing her while he tells her through his thoughts,As the twin suns rise, your life begins anew.
The suns’ rays shine through their moving lips as if the glimmering shafts want to steal a share of their passion. The incoming tide reaches up to his knees, but they are oblivious to the swell. They are drowning in their irrepressible desire. Time goes by, and the twin suns keep rising; the school of flying lyshars skim their fluttering wings over the sea’s surface, but their shrieks go unheard, their presence unnoticed. All Rothwen and Shaillah can hear is the thumping echo of their racing hearts.
CHAPTER 11
THE REPLICA
Thank you, dear Zula. And however hard to believe,
thank you for showing me who I am.
Rothwen is resting by the scattered boulders on the seashore, taking stock of his endeavour. Today, whatever the perils and unknowns, he wouldn’t have it any other way; of that, he is sure. But what the future may bring—of that, he is not so sure.
He sends his last thought-message to Zula-Or, the Rom-Ghenshars’ High Counsellor:I was tired of the desolate wanderings. I needed something to shake up my demons, something to keep me from fighting against myself.
You always have what you want, Rothwen, and this is no different, Zula-Or replies from her ethereal gem-studded garden.
Rothwen looks at Shaillah’s angelic face as she soundly sleeps, her head lying snuggly against his bare chest.
No, my dear Zula … this is different, he counters.
Shaillah rolls open her drowsy eyes as she stirs within Rothwen’s arms. Her mind is blank and her vision blurred, but the swooshing sound of the ocean and the warmth from his body soon take her out of her slumber.
“What time is it?” she mumbles, stretching her arms and legs.
“Time?” Rothwen wryly smiles. “The time is now.”
