Shared Skies (11 page)

“
As you can see, they
don’t interfere with each other at all, but every September and
March when the solar winds are strongest, this happens.” The three
magnetic fields started to dance, to entwine and mingle their
colours. Red, yellow and blue turned to shades of green, purple and
orange. “The aurora borealis. The endless light dance of magnetism
and our sun's radiation."

Gaiah looked towards the windows. The
sunlight was visible as a dull glow.

“
Yes, it's our sun too.
Our three parallel dimensions share the same skies. As I said, at
these times of the year it is easy to merge our energy and simply
shift Earthways. This causes no disruption to Earth. Outside these
times we never force a shifting unless there is a dire necessity.
However, the Or’kans have no such reservations.”

The magnetic fields stopped their connecting
dance and returned to their own rhythms. Suddenly, a blast of red
from Or’ka broke through the yellow lines of Earth, creating a
gaping hole that filled with a murky orange whirlpool. Earth’s
magnetic lines continued but each time a yellow band approached
that area it became dull orange until it moved on. Gaiah could see
there were a lot of similar colour muddlings around Earth’s
globe.

“
Or'kans have permanently
damaged the magnetic field around Bermuda. Thousands of Earth lives
have been lost, planes have crashed and boats have sunk because of
their interference. But this is not the true horror of Or’ka.”
Gorand’s voice was grave. He paused as the door opened and a young
girl bounced in.

“
Gorand! I was told to say
that Gaiah must eat, and I was sent in with these.” She put a
steaming mug of cappuccino complete with chocolate sprinkles in
front of Gaiah, accompanied by a plate of toasted muffins–butter
melting over their golden tops. She was smaller than Gaiah. Her
hair, plaited into dozens of long braids all shot through with
silver ribbon, made a shining curtain hanging down her
back.

“
It’s so electric to meet
you! And we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. I hope you
like dance music, cos I love-”

“
Renny, thank you. We’ll
fill Gaiah in on your part in her life shortly, but for now, let us
continue.” Gorand’s voice cut through the girl’s excited
babble.

Unabashed, she gave Gaiah a luminous grin,
winked and left the room.

It was a bit awkward, being the only person
in the room with food or drink. She ignored it until Kaley nudged
her and said, “Eat. Don’t waste the time or the food.”

Gaiah obediently picked up her coffee and
sipped.

Gorand continued.“We Gaianans spend our time
creating, gathering and husbanding our world’s energy. We respect
and love Earth as our equal counterpart. It is also our core;
without our connection to Earth, we wouldn't exist. And because our
life spans are so much longer and there isn't any want or evil in
our world, we are pledged to watch over Earth, doing what we can to
protect it from the malice that is Or’ka.”

His voice was somber. Deep lines appeared
between his eyes, drawing his eyebrows together. “The Or’kans are
high energy beings like us, but that is where the similarity ends.
Or’ka is ruled by five families. They treat their people abysmally,
use them as slaves. They force them to produce energy endlessly.
They are never allowed to shift Earthways unless they are sent on a
vile mission of destruction.” He drew a deep breath. “The almost
unspeakable truth is that the Or’kans have developed a way to shift
to Earth in a pure energy form. They transmit directly into a
human, forcing their host’s energy particles to make room for them.
Their ultimate aim is to take over Earth.”

Gaiah just stared, the golden muffin turned
to tasteless crumbs. It was surreal to be drinking coffee while she
listened to this horror story.

“
They have been trying it
for many years; Or’kan years. But the hosts died almost immediately
and the Or’kan was returned to Or’ka. They tried shifting instantly
to the nearest human as soon as the first host died but the second,
third or fourth host died anyway. They experimented with this
method for a time until they realized the energy cost to Or’ka was
too great. They killed hundreds of thousands of humans. On Earth it
was called the ‘Black Death’.”

Gaiah gasped. Of course
she had heard of the ‘Black Death’ in history class. Almost sixty
percent of Europe's population had died.
All for an experiment?
Gorand paused
and looked at Gaiah, in case she had a question. But she just
looked back down at her coffee. What was there to say?

“
They kept trying to
increase their time of human occupation; their next concentrated
effort was called the 'Spanish Flu' on Earth. This was just as
devastating and, like the previous time, we shifted as many
Gaianans Earthways as we could and encognated people all over the
world, to isolate a sick person so that the ' infection' couldn't
pass from one person to another.”

“
Oh my God.” breathed
Gaiah. “This is so horrible.”

“
Apart from the mass
attempts, they have been constantly making individual efforts;
Earth’s history is full of tales of alien abduction, zombies, and
invasion of the body-snatcher type stories. All of these would have
been better for Earth than the truth.”

Gaiah leant forward. “If they can’t sustain
it in the long run, they can’t destroy Earth, can they?”

Gorand walked around his chair and leaned on
its high, padded back. “That’s the point. In order to control Earth
they need to spend many Earth years building and controlling
governments and countries. Unfortunately, there are always many
power-hungry, ruthless humans willing to get behind a leader like
this and support them. The Or’kans then discovered a way to
tranquilize their victim so their occupancy went from days to
years. But, as they discovered with Hitler, that wasn't
enough.”

“
Hitler?” Gaiah repeated
weakly.

“
Unfortunately, yes.
Hitler–an artistic, animal-loving, vegetarian, beloved only
child–was turned into the creator of one of the most hideous mass
murders in history. That was Seoc, from Or’ka’s Clan Fire, one of
the Five Families. He stayed so long in Hitler, he had to use the
body’s own energy to boost his return to Or’ka. Earth movies from
the time show the deterioration. Hitler appeared shaking, stooped
and frail. In the end, because Seoc used almost every particle of
energy to return to Or'ka, there was barely a body left. What was
left, was quickly cremated by the remaining Or'kans, before they
too fled.”

Gaiah shuddered, she'd heard the
speculations about this. In one of the most photographed wars ever,
there had never been any photographic evidence of Hitler's
death.

Gorand shrugged. “Seoc was so weak
afterwards, he needed a year in Or’ka to recover. The trouble was,
an Or’kan year is approximately thirty Earth ones. And when Seoc
was recovered enough to return, the regime he had so carefully
built up was now an integrated part of the European Community,
contributing to the common welfare. Not what he had in mind at
all.”

“
Why didn't another Or’kan
just take his place in another body?” Gaiah asked.

“
Firstly because, when
things started going wrong, Seoc sent his Or´kan commanders home,
to save energy. He hoped to run his campaign with the Earth people
already in his thrall. And secondly, because there are only five
ruling families on Or'ka. While they might share the energy
produced by their slave population, they are extremely jealous and
competitive. Each family pursues their own agenda. Some of the
lesser families are only interested in Earth as their private
playground. These creatures are horrible and degenerate but don’t
pose as much threat as the others. The most dangerous families are
the ones who are determined to be the family that finally controls
Earth. So, each project is from an individual family and Seoc’s
only brother was too young.”

Gaiah was overwhelmed. She
wanted to dismiss the whole thing as an absurd fantasy, but sitting
here in this dim light, surrounded by anxious, serious faces, it
all felt too horribly real. “Gaiah, we could talk forever about
history. About the twists and tales of the Trinity’s existence, but
the crux of the matter is, the Five have found a way to occupy a
human for a significant length of time,
and
then move to another when the
first dies. They can do this now without having to return to Or’ka.
They can keep whole dynasties going this way. We suspect North
Korea has been their testing ground.” Gorand swiveled his chair
towards him and slumped into it.

An older woman stood, her hair coiled around
her head, kept in place by silver ribbons dotted with flowers. The
colours in her tunic, from lilac to the faintest pink, seemed to
glow, even in the dim light. “I am Bevin, of Clan Light. If they
can do this,” she said, her sibilant voice sweet and clear, “the
Or’kans will not only destroy humanity in an orgy of violence and
greed, they will try to change the magnetic fields to prevent
Gaianans shifting to intervene. If they succeed in doing this, we
fear the effects on Gaiana would be catastrophic.”

A solemn silence filled the room. Gaiah’s
head was reeling. The worlds floating over the table disappeared,
the windows changed colour and sunlight came back flooding back
through the walls.

Twelve faces looked at Gaiah. Gorand spoke
again. “So there is our dilemma, Gaiah. What are we going to
do?”

It took Gaiah several
seconds to register the question was being asked of her in all
seriousness. She gave a nervous laugh, which unfortunately
coincided with a mouthful of muffin. The resulting spray of crumbs
on to the table broke the tension and everyone laughed. It was such
a plainly silly moment, Gaiah wasn't even embarrassed. In fact, she
laughed even more. Then the horror of what she had heard came back
to her. She spread her hands and said in a small voice, “Why are
you asking me? I don’t know! I’m only eighteen! I'd never even
heard of this Trinity until yesterday, I’m having trouble just
believing it, and you’re asking
me
to save it?” She looked around the faces, hoping
to find even one person who thought this was ridiculous
too.

A chair scraped back. “Ruairidh, Clan
Earth.” A forceful voice filled the room. “You are a melding’s
child and that’s extraordinarily special. The Or’kans know it too
and that’s why they tried to stop you reaching us.”

“
But why didn't they stop
me while I lived in London?” interrupted Gaiah, well aware she was
using the word 'stop' instead of kill. Alasdair answered
her.

“
They would have, in a
heartbeat, no matter which heritage you favored-just to be sure you
were eliminated. However, the Or’kans were unaware of you until we
made contact. You were born on Earth and Nia had never brought you
to Gaiana. All those years we stayed away from you, kept you safe.
We couldn't even come to London to get you. It would have alerted
one of the Five. However, it would appear that someone did know,
but thankfully it must have been a junior member taking it upon
himself to interfere with your journey. I expect by now they have
some unfortunate occupied human keeping an eye on you.”

Gaiah leaned her elbows on the table and put
her head in her hands. She spoke down to the table. “I’m sorry
everyone, I really am. I know you were expecting something great
from me, but I honestly meant it when I said I don’t have a clue.
Dimensions, shiftings, mind-taking, annihilation. It’s waaay beyond
me. Is there another, em…er...melding’s child around who might be
more help?” This caused a ripple of amusement.

Kaley said, “Gaiah, darling, a melding’s
child happens about once in several Earth millennia. Without fail,
they are people with extraordinary powers. Even if you don’t know
it yet, you are the answer.” She looked at the table. “Oh my
Powers! The time. We must rush.”

Everyone stood. Gorand said, “I’m so sorry
our first meeting had to be filled with such ugly conversation. I
promise, on your next visit we will show you all the beauty of
Gaiana and the hospitality of your people.”

Alasdair put his arms around Gaiah.
“Quickly, we've no time!”

Gaiah looked at him. “Why, what’s the rush?
We haven’t been here that long.”

“
Yes,” he agreed. “But it’s been a Gaianan hour, an earth day.
It’s now eleven o'clock on Monday morning on Earth. You are already
late for your first day at school!”

Chapter Nine

This is absurd.
Gaiah was speechless.
One minute they’re asking me to save the world and the next
they’re sending me to school.
Alasdair
steered her to the door. “We really do have to rush.”

“
Well, I’m sure you’ll be
back soon and we can fill Gaiah in on everything else she needs to
know.” Gorand said, approaching Gaiah. “I cannot tell you how
relieved we all were when it was reported that your Gaianan
heritage was coming to the fore. But time is of the essence. Please
don’t delay.”

Gaiah opened her mouth but closed it
immediately; she could think of nothing to say. There was no time
anyway to say anything. The Ten stood and watched in silence as
Kaley and Alasdair ushered her out.

Outside, Gaiah was surprised to see Renny
going from foot to foot like a wind-up toy waiting to be released.
Her hair was beautifully cut. The multi-coloured Gaianan clothes
swapped for skinny, black jeans and a tight, red sweater, which
clung down over her hips, revealing curves a black, leather jacket
did nothing to hide. Heavy eyeliner and biker boots completed the
look. She grinned at Gaiah, her smile lighting up her face and
sparkling in her eyes. She beckoned, waving her hands
energetically.