Chapter 1

The wormhole to the Mesopotamian colony was open and had just turned opaque, causing the vision of the settlement to fade. But the twins, Terisa and Talina, Elaine's twin daughters, didn't notice and they wanted to be the first of the group to touch foot in the distant past.

"Who wants to go first?" Terisa yelled excitedly, already stepping forward into her very first wormhole and determined not to show any fear of the unknown.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Talina yelped, then grabbed her sister's arm. They both disappeared into the wormhole.

"How come we can't see them in it?" Holly wanted to know.

"Is that smoke?" asked Haley.

Alana and Elaine looked at each other worriedly, realizing that the "H" twins were right. They should be able to see the landscape where the wormhole opened up. And – 'I should be able to see my... '

"My babies! Where'd they go?" Elaine screamed into their minds, then dove forward and disappeared into the haze.

The air was thick; foggy with so much suspended water vapor that Talina could barely make out the form of her sister, Terisa, right next to her.

"Wow! Where are we?" she asked, surprised that even the sound of her voice seemed muffled by the thick atmosphere. "I can't hardly hear myself talk!"

"Real blessing there," Terisa muttered sarcastically. She always sounded sarcastic when she was uncertain or nervous; it was most likely a defense mechanism, and Talina ignored it, understanding that her sister needed to feel like she was 'in charge'. Of course, she knew who was really the brighter of the two, and it wasn't Terisa, even though she often acted the part.

'Girls? Where are you?' Elaine's anxious mental blast drowned out the twins' thoughts.

'Oh, good. You're both all right, ' Elaine thought as she relocated herself to where her girls were. "I was worried when you vanished into that strange ... into this ... uh, where in the world are we? This doesn't look like the settlement."

"I wouldn't know," Terisa shot back. "I've never been there."

"And you aren't there, now, either, I bet," Talina ventured.

"I think we've been hijacked," Elaine said, and closed her eyes, hoping for a vision that might clarify what was happening to them.

"You mean, 'kidnapped', Mom," Terisa corrected her in her bored, sarcastic voice. "Hijacking is what you do to things and Kidnapping is what you do ... well, what happened to us, obviously, and if someone is actually trying that, they're gonna find out just how sorry their lives are gonna get, 'cause I'll teleport their asses to 'F'ing Jupiter!"

"Terisa! Your language!" Elaine sternly interrupted.

"We might just be on Jupiter, what with the thickness of this fog," Talina countered, ignoring both her sister's language and her mom. "I can't see anything! And I can't even dream-walk high enough to get above it to see where the fuck we are."

"Dammit, girls..." Elaine sighed, realizing that she couldn't afford to be distracted by her daughter's attitudes. All their lives might be in danger. Shutting them out, she tried to 'Seek' some information from her surroundings.

"Don't be a silly sis," Terisa said mockingly. "This couldn't be Jupiter. For one thing, the gravity would squish you so flat you'd only be a blotch of goo three inches tall and the air's so full of methane you can't breathe it and if you want to know what methane smells like go stick your face up the ass end of a cow sometime and take a big, deep whiff..."

"Girls!" their mother admonished them – again. "I'm trying to concentrate. Do you mind?"

Her youngest daughters immediately ceased their chatter, but Elaine picked up the thought from, she believed, Terisa: 'Not often, if I can help it... '

Talina snickered, knowing that the only reason her sister was, well ... the way she was, was because she was upset and uncertain, like she'd figured out before. She liked the way the two of them interacted with the world; Terisa argued, Talina did the thinking, and the rest of the world just observed – hopefully in an admiring, or at least astonished, sort of way.

'God, you are sooo stuck on yourself!' Terisa growled silently into Talina's mind.

'Okay, smarmy, you figure out where we are if you're so bright!' Talina replied.

'Well, ' Terisa actually decided to try, 'we're not where we're supposed to be... '

'Good start. Anything else?'

'I think we were, uh... ' she couldn't think of the word, so she simply sent Talina a mental image of moving a string, representing the wormhole, so that one end had changed position. 'That.'

'Relocated?' Talina agreed. 'That's what I think, too. But with us and Mom, I'm pretty sure we have enough power to get back to New Eden whenever we want, so that brings us to the problem... '

'Yeah, ' Terisa jumped in, 'What's the reason for hijacking the wormhole and bringing us here? Wherever 'here' is... '

'This'd be a lot easier if we could dissipate this fog, ' Talina thought. 'Then maybe we could see where we are.'

"Heads up, girls," Elaine said quietly. "Someone's coming."

'Someone, or ... something... '

"What'd'ya mean, 'something'?" Terisa said out loud, her voice uneven with worry. "You think we should shield? I'm not very good at that, you know."

"Neither am I," Talina whispered as she stared so hard into the fog her vision was starting to tunnel. "I can't tell what's out there."

"I think we should form a circle and teleport back to New Eden," Terisa informed her sister and mother, her voice trembling with actual fear. "You know, like – right now?"

"Too late for that," Elaine told her daughters as she hugged them close and created a small time-shield around them. "They're here."

Talina cried out as she was suddenly yanked off her feet. Something was wrapped around her ankle – both ankles, actually – and was pulling her in two different directions, causing her to land on her rump in the muck in which she, her sister and her mother found themselves standing.

"What?" Terisa asked, frightened by the confusion and anger being broadcast by her twin. "What's the matter? Where'd you go?" Then she, too, squawked as she was pulled down. She could barely see her sister sitting next to her in the thick fog. A second later, Talina disappeared as she was dragged away by whatever had wrapped itself around her feet.

"He-e-l-l-lp!" she cried, both vocally and mentally with her mind. An image of being dragged feet first through cold mud accompanied her frightened plea along with the fact that her sarong had slipped right off over her head, and she was getting very nakedly dirty in some very personal areas. In fact, the mud was getting everywhere!

'Talina! Terisa! Teleport straight up! Now!' Elaine shouted into both their minds. 'Get off the ground! It's not safe!'

Terisa closed her eyes and concentrated on up! An instant later, she could see her mother, wings extended, flying some distance below her. Terisa formed her wings and dove down to her mother's height, mostly to gain enough speed to control her flight.

"Where's Talina?" Elaine asked anxiously.

Talina's naked, muddy form suddenly appeared right in front of Elaine. Barely conscious and unable to form her wings, Talina rapidly began to drop toward the ground.

Terisa spiraled down, then quickly recovered and flapped wildly upward. Talina's unconscious body popped out of space and back in, each time a little higher than before as Elaine and Terisa repeatedly located, then teleported the youngest of them (by four minutes) further and further upward through the atmosphere.

Elaine was furious – both with herself and with the fact that she and her youngest daughters were in this potentially lethal situation and she'd had no warning whatsoever. She was a Seeker, dammit – one of the best and brightest of her race. 'The universe is supposed to bend time and space to provide me with answers! Where the fuck ARE you? I really need an answer right about now... '