One for the Morning Glory

Without letting their outlines appear in the sky above the ridge, four teenagers settled behind cover to watch. Dana Partlow crawled forward under a thorny thicket to peer between fern-like fronds. They had a slightly spicy tang unlike anything she’d smelled back on Earth. Liz hid nearby, behind two rocks, with Ricky and John further back, among the shaggy trees.

Dana’s view of the Kolchoi cave across the valley was excellent. After the hard lessons of days of chases and ambushes, so was her patience.

It helped that both boys were out of sight.

She settled, elbows propped, into a position that she could hold a while and waited. After she had counted 143 ant-like insects crawling along the frond before her face, she heard Liz mutter to herself, “This had better be worth it.”

Dana smiled. If Liz was already this tired of waiting, John was probably bouncing off tree trunks. Without turning her head, she whispered back, “Only one way to find out.”

A quiet growl was the only response.

Eleven more ‘ants’ later, Ricky chirped three times—the signal that he’d spotted danger, and both Dana and Liz froze. After several long moments, a troop of Kolchoi came into view, fording the valley stream in a ragged line. Seven reptilian humanoids, all heading towards the cave across the valley, one with the helmet plume of a commander. Dana couldn’t tell whether these were from the larger group they’d escaped three days ago.

She stayed completely still, breathing shallowly, as the green-skinned warriors stopped just outside the cave entrance for a conversation. Two Kolchoi took off their packs. What were they—? Ah. They handed off several items to the other four troopers. Then the commander made that saluting gesture, forearm across the chest, which the four returned before filing into the cave. The entrance flashed faintly with a purple light that resonated in Dana’s chest.

What the—?

Dana concentrated on that sensation, trying to memorize it. It was such a weird feeling, she barely noticed the remaining three Kolchoi head down the valley, staying above the stream.

She stared at the cave. The light had been similar to a curtain, or a door, but it had echoed inside her, like it had touched an organ she didn’t know she had. And somehow, someway, she believed there was more to come.

There—a few minutes later, the cave flickered again, not as brightly, but with a deeper resonance, a tingling running from the back of her head down to her crotch. She knew, in a way she didn’t understand, that the cave was empty now, that there was no more to see.

From far away, just behind her left hip, Liz hissed, “I said, are you coming?”

Dana took a deep breath and nodded. The heat from Liz’s lithe body was suddenly very distracting. Wriggling backwards on her belly to avoid disturbing fronds, Dana wormed her way out, then followed Liz silently around the boulders to where John and Ricky waited.

“Still,” John was saying, “that it was four again has to be significant somehow.” He tugged on the lashing that held the broken-off blade of a hunting knife on his spear-shaft, testing it yet again.

“Or just a coincidence,” Ricky said with an air of repetition. He was digging through his backpack, his lean brown hands deft and quick.

Dana shook her head reflexively. It was significant—exactly how, she wasn’t sure. It was knowledge just out of reach, like details from an almost forgotten dream.

“Anyway,” Liz said, “we have to get away from here.”

John nodded, and Ricky made a sound of agreement.

But Dana said, “No.”

The other three looked at her, startled. As the youngest of them, with the least wilderness experience, they’d gotten used to Dana going along with their decisions—all of them had, herself included. Till now, she’d no reason to disagree.

Without thinking her words through, she said, “We have to check it out, that cave.”

“What? No! They’re still in there!” said John, waving his arm. Dana tried not to think of how much space his large body occupied.

Ricky looked at her carefully. He was quieter, more controlled. “What did you see?”

Oh, she realized, they hadn’t seen it—that purple light. And then she realized what that meant. Slowly she replied, “Just like your tracking magic ‘woke up’ last week, and then Liz’s weathering, mine just did.”

“Oh great,” muttered John, then when Ricky whapped the back of his head, “Ow! Hey!”

“What kind of magic?” Liz asked.

Dana shook her head. “Don’t know—yet.”

Ricky nodded thoughtfully. “And that’s why you need to see the cave.”

Dana nodded back.

“Ah. Right,” said Liz with a smile. A small knot loosened inside Dana, seeing their support.

John drummed fingers on a thigh several times, then blew out a breath. “If it gives us an edge,” he said.

They waited till sundown. No Kolchoi came back nor exited the cave, though they did see a hunting cat, about halfway between a cougar and bobcat in size, stalk through the brush on the slope above the cave.

When the late sunset glow was barely brighter than the ringlight overhead, they carefully approached the cave. Dana tried to focus on her footing, her surroundings, but it was hard. Harder still was hiding forty meters away, behind fallen boulders, to make double sure no one was inside. She wanted to rush inside.

Finally Ricky, at the entrance, reappeared out of stalking mode and waved them up.

John shook his head, a motion Dana more felt than saw in the silvery ringlight. “It’s freaky, every time he does that,” he muttered.

Dana paused. “Don’t worry,” she told him, “if even I’ve gotten magic, you will too.”

“Are you kidding?” he said, holding out a hand to help her up a shelf cut by flooding. “Of all of us, you’re the one I’d most expect to get magic.”

Huh?

She tried to act natural, taking his offered hand. This had gotten easier, after all they’d been through.

“He’s right.” Liz’s voice came from a shadow moving ahead of them. “It’s that quiet, thoughtful thing of yours.”

Quiet, sure—thoughtful?

“Speaking of which,” Ricky stage-whispered, “a little more quiet now?”

No one said anything till they clustered in front of the cave. The entrance was roughly round, about two meters across and high. Inside was completely dark—to Dana’s eyes and inner sense both.

“Now what?” said John.

Ricky gestured to Dana. She nodded and stepped up to the entrance.

There was, she could tell, a discrete boundary in the ground, one she couldn’t see. She held her open hand a few centimeters away from the rock wall at the edge of the opening, and moved it up and down. The boundary was there too.

“Not active,” she murmured.

“Which means?” Ricky prompted.

“Don’t know yet,” Dana said, distracted by sensations she wasn’t used to. Not just the shape of the boundary—the positions of three bodies. The heat of them. She shook her head, as much to clear it as anything. “Won’t till we go in.”

“Right,” Ricky said, and stepped forward.

Without thinking, Dana blocked him with her arm. “Wait!”

The reflexive action shocked her—why would she risk touching him like that? What bugged her so much? She hated working on instinct like this, not working things through first, but she had no choice.

She thought about the Kolchoi who entered earlier. They had—

Ah, that was it—they’d held the bare shoulder of the one ahead of them. They needed skin-to-skin contact, Dana somehow knew. Maybe that was why Kolchoi wore those ridiculous harnesses of leather straps as their only clothing, like aliens out of a planetary romance.

“Take my hand,” she told Ricky. “Chain up, hand in hand.”

“Why?” said John.

“Just do it,” said Ricky.

Ricky had to lash his stone-headed spear to his backpack, and Liz slung her makeshift bow over her shoulder, leaving John’s spear as their only weapon out. John took the end of their line.

Finally Ricky’s lean fingers wrapped around Dana’s, and she was glad there wasn’t enough light for him to see her face flush.

Only when she could feel all four of them—and it had to be four—through Ricky’s hand did she start forward. The curtain, which to her eyes looked like a veil of purple light, caressed her skin as she stepped through—even under her clothes. The sensation smelled like an exotic skin lotion.

When John stepped completely through, the portal activated.

“Whoa,” said three voices at once. Dana was silent, sorting through knowledge just unlocked, astounding knowledge, while the others looked around the chamber in the diffuse lavender glow.

“Did you do that?” John said, waving his hand about. The glow, he meant.

“No,” Dana said faintly. Now that she knew what they were going to do, she was nervous. And excited. A scared kind of excited. It meant getting close to them. She swallowed, and added, “We did.”

Liz nodded at the round stone table in the center of the domed chamber. “What’s that?”

Dana stepped up. Concrete things, she could deal with. “This is the—the console. It displays the transit map.” She touched the slightly convex surface, shiny like black glass, with that barest touch of power that activated it.

She tingled from the base of her skull to her crotch as the surface lit up with a network of glittering lines connecting winking lights, each a subtly different shade of purple. At the center, the brightest light was the same color as the glow around them. The whole thing was about two meters across.

The others stepped up to the console, circling it.

“Transit map?” John said sharply. “You mean, this is a portal?”

Dana nodded.

“Can we use it to get back to Earth?” John demanded.

“No,” Dana said softly, just as disappointed as he was, “it only goes to other portals here.” She gestured at the map.

Ricky nodded. “This is how all those Kolchoi suddenly showed up, without any trail.”

“Damn,” said Liz. She ran a hand through her short, pale hair.

Dana shivered, feeling and seeing the faint purple lines of power connecting the four of them. A network that was still incomplete.

Ricky went on, “But even if we can’t yet use this to get home—”

“‘Yet’?” John said.

“—we can use it to get away from immediate danger.”

Liz said, “We should do so soon, then, before another band portals in.”

“No one can arrive at this portal while we’re inside,” Dana said.

“Even so,” Ricky said, “if we’re here too long, someone will get suspicious, right?”

Oh. Probably.

“You can work this thing?” John asked.

Dana nodded.

“We need to choose a destination safer than this place,” Ricky said.

That brought John up short. “Fuck, the map doesn’t have labels. What if we end up in a Kolchoi city?”

Dana frowned. Why weren’t there labels? She fumbled a few moments with the controls with her unfamiliar power. Ah, there—the map now showed terrain as well.

John grumbled, “What about names?”

Ricky asked, “Can you read Kolchoi?” which shut him up. To Dana, “Which portals can we reach from here?”

She twisted the power, and outer nodes of the network dimmed. What remained were all the single-hop stations, just over a dozen.

“Hmm,” Ricky hummed.

“This one.” Liz pointed.

They looked at her.

She smiled, and Dana’s heart thumped. “It’s snowing there right now, and nowhere else. Those squiggles must indicate mountains.”

“And nobody will want to be out, if there’s even anyone there,” Ricky said.

“We won’t want to be out,” John protested.

“We don’t have much cold-weather gear,” Dana added.

“It’s a risk, but any worse than staying here?”

Given all the Kolchoi warriors circling in on their location. Dana looked at Liz, meeting her blue eyes for the first time since they entered the chamber. “How long will it keep snowing?”

Liz looked briefly startled, then closed her eyes. After a few moments of concentration, she said, “An hour or two—the winds are already starting to weaken. Clearing by morning, I think.” She opened her eyes and looked at Dana. “I can’t feel further ahead than that, not from here.”

Dana nodded, and said to Ricky, “I’m game.”

John rolled his eyes. “Fine. Let’s go.” To Dana, “Bus, do your stuff.”

Dana’s heart thumped again. It was time to commit to this. To survival. As casually as she could, she told them, “Not me—all of us.”

She power-touched the control that raised the console up on four thin pillars to about the height of her chin. This time, the tingling concentrated lower in her torso.

Underneath the console was a round padded mat covered with a rumpled cotton sheet.

“Fhew,” said John. “What’s that smell?”

A funk that could only be Kolchoi sweat wrapped around Dana’s head. Stale sweat, and not the ordinary kind.

“Dana,” said Liz, “why does this reek of sex?”

Dana knelt on the edge of the mat. Only knowing it was important kept her from turning sideways—she faced inward, toward all three of them as they ducked under the console. The lines of power pulsed between them, even incomplete as they were. “Because the portal is powered by sex.”

They stared at her.

“Sex with ... you?” John finally said.

Was that so unappealing? (This thought worried her more than ever.)

“Not just me,” Dana said, “all of us—together.”

“Wait, what?” Liz said, collapsing to her knees on the mat.

Dana took a risk and held out her right hand. To her infinite relief, Liz took it, warm flesh soft against her sweaty palm. Deep inside her, the power trembled.

Ricky slowly lowered himself to the mat, on Dana’s other side. “Seriously?”

John shook his head and joined them. Even on his knees, he barely fit under the console. “We knew Kolchoi tech is weird, but this...”

“It is,” Dana agreed. Though, the portal didn’t feel like other Kolchoi tech they’d met—but without more to go on, she didn’t say that. She held her other hand out to Ricky.

He took it. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” He spoke softly, without the accusation that John would have used.