"Lee, this is Amanda," Rissa said. Amanda gave me a sharp nod and held out her hand.

"I hear you're going to be my teacher." As I shook hands, I off ered her my best Texas good-old-boy grin.

Her determined gaze flicked over my body as though I were some object sh e was considering purchasing. From the look on her face, she didn't fin d me much of a bargain. "So I've been told. I've been working with Rissa, conc entrating on developing techniques to help us explore the alternate worlds."

28 "That's important work."

"Thanks. But Rissa thinks I need the power of your mind to provide st ability when I'm within the gate." A slight sniff at the end of this sentence made it clear she didn't agree.

I slid Rissa a glance. Enthusiastic, my hind left foot! I shot at her, mind to mind.

Rissa shrugged with a sheepish grin. Sorry! I'm good with research not with people. But I still think you two will make a great team.

"The two of you will make a great team," Rissa repeated aloud, ignoring my skeptical look. "I'm eager to hear what you find out there."

I turned to Amanda. "You realize this is dangerous."

I didn't like the fact she had reservations about working with me. Th e sex gates were dangerous enough. I didn't need a partner I didn't full y trust. Maybe if I gave her a strong warning about the perils ahead, she'd back out. Rissa could find someone else to teach me. Hell, Rissa could teach me and I'd go on my own.

"I would never have come to the Nexus in the first place if I feared danger."

Amanda shook off my warning with a faint smile. "I'm prepared to t ake any risk to learn to master the gates. The gates are our future."

As she spoke, the fire of inner passion burned in her eyes. I was reliev ed to see her determined attitude, although it was obvious she would have preferred to work alone. I couldn't help but notice, however, that she hadn't mentioned any desire to help the people in stasis.

"On our first few trips, we'll be looking for worlds for a specifi c purpose," I said.

Her lips curled slightly. "Ah, yes. I heard you'd decided to try a nd save the people trapped in stasis."

"You don't agree?"

"No." She spoke with surprising firmness. "I believe in achieve ment, hard work, and doing your best. The people in stasis are failures."

"That's a little harsh." In fact, I probably would have agreed with her at one time, before Rita taught me to appreciate the value of compassion. But I wasn't 29

about to admit that.

Amanda shrugged. "It's your decision. You asked my opinion. That'

s it. The gates work according to established principles of evolution-the survival of the fittest. Those people failed that test."

"Yet the gate masters didn't eliminate them," I pointed out. "If they wantedthese people to vanish, why did they preserve their genetic blueprints in the crystals here?"

Amanda lifted an eyebrow. "Perhaps they wished to study defective subjects."

I was puzzled by her attitude. "If you feel that way, why are you willing to help me find worlds for them?"

She looked surprised. "At the moment, your goals and mine coincide. W e both want to master quantum travel. Rissa thinks I need the extra power of your mind while I'm learning to manipulate the quantum chaos, so I'm willing to try it."

I wasn't thrilled by her lack of enthusiasm, but it was a reasonable answer.

"This trip isn't going to be any joyride," I warned.

She nodded. "Understood. However, I think you'll find I generally succeed at whatever I do. I have a passionate belief in excellence."

"Great!"

Another scientific overachiever. Well, Rissa was an overachiever, too, and I couldn't complain about that. Her expertise was saving our butts at the moment.

"Amanda can be blunt, but she's the best." Rissa patted my arm and offered a soothing smile. "I'm confident the two of you will succeed in finding the worlds we need."

"I can certainly think of better uses for uninhabited alternate worlds,"

Amanda said, with a haughty lift of her chin. "I'd like to see an experiment where we place superior humans on such a world and see what kind of society they create."

Obviously, Amanda considered herself one of those superior humans. I struggled to hide a smile. "Maybe someday. I'm for progress, too, you know."

Her eyes brightened. "I'm glad to hear it. I believe the gates cou ld be used to speed up human evolution. The alternate worlds are an ideal place for su ch an experiment. As for these people in stasis, they belong back on Earth."

30

"The problem is, no one on Earth wants them. We Seconders would make a lot of enemies if we sent the criminals back there." I raised a questioning eyebrow at Rissa, although I already knew her opinion.

Rissa shook her head. "I'm against trying to send them to Earth, too. Once people start coming out of stasis, the process will be continuous. Earth wouldn't appreciate us dumping a load of criminals and mentally ill on them without warning."

"Good. So what's the plan?"

Rissa rubbed her hands together, a sure sign she was about to launch int o alecture. "We know that the gate masters chose this Nexus world because human life never developed here and it's close, dimensionally speaking, to Earth. They used it as a staging world for sending the gates to our planet. So, it occurs to me that this might not be their only staging world."

"You mean there might be other Nexus worlds out there?"

"Exactly. And if there are, there will be other crystal cities."

I nodded, excited at this idea. "That would mean we'd have ready-built cities for the people in stasis as they emerge. What are our chances of finding an alternate Nexus world?"

"You should have some idea by now of how the quantum flux works,"

Amanda said. "The gate throws us into a state of potential. Where we go from there depends on our own mental powers. Since clear visualization is a key, we will have an advantage if we can visualize an alternate reality close to this one."

"No problem."

I knew the drill. I'd traveled from world to world before, although only with the help of Messler. I'm sure that experience was the reason Rissa wanted me to partner with Amanda. Of course, I was the one at risk. But it was a risk I was willing to assume.

Amanda shot me an assessing look, as if doubting my ability to hold any thought in focus for long. As I've said, my physical appearance as a male is not that impressive. I had the feeling Amanda had spent a long lifetime as a man, and a powerful one at that.

"Let's get going, then, shall we?"

31

"After you." I made a sweeping gesture toward the glowing gate, an d the two of us stepped through the arch, into the green fog.

An ordinary person who enters a gate will experience an instantaneous transformation into the opposite sex. They step in, and the next thing t hey know they're out again, with no memory of whatever happened in-between. But there is an in-between, a dimension beyond space and time where the forces that shape what we call reality are laid naked to any consciousness advanced enough to p erceive them. If the universe is indeed a vast thought, this is the place where thought originates. And here, by shaping energy with powerful intent, it is possible to move from one alternate reality to another.

This was the process Rissa had mastered and taught to Amanda. She possessed the crystal clarity of mind needed to reach a destination; I possessed the raw power. As we stepped through the arch, the usual transformation bega n, but weresisted it together. As we oriented ourselves in the green fog, I prepared to mesh minds so that we could work as a unit toward our joint goal.

I was more than a little intrigued at the thought of touching Amanda'

s mind.

Rita would have probably laughed at this change in my usual priorities.

Normally, I'm more interested in making the acquaintance of a sexy young body than the mind behind it. But the intensity this woman radiated fascinated me. I reached out with my thoughts-and struck a protective wall. Where another thought should have met and intertwined with mine, I encountered a hard barrier. And then, her thought rang in my mind: Direct your energy through me.

Anger exploded inside me. She wanted to take my energy without giving me any insight into how she was zeroing in on an alternate world. I was in no mood to trail after her like some obedient puppy, supplying her with energy whil e she controlled our travels. And I was rapidly tiring of her superior attitude. I sent her an ultimatum: I want to see how your mind works as you direct our journey, so I can do it myself the next time.

I don't like the thought of someone rummaging through my mind, as if I were hosting a garage sale of mental abilities, she shot back.

32

No doubt about it. Amanda might have a sexy young body, but she had the personality of an old man who was used to bossing people around. Maybe it was time to show her who was the boss in the Nexus. I gathered my thoughts t o myself, and then reached out to touch her mind with the strength that came from my many trips. The mental barrier that blocked my way rang like crystal as I crashed into it.

The blow set up vibrations that rippled and sang through the mysterious dimension where we hung, seeking our path.

Stop! Frightened by my power, she sent her thoughts out to meet mine. It was a forced surrender and when our thoughts touched, hers were as cold as the ice frozen in the heart of the Artic. She opened a tunnel into her consciousness, but it was only a narrow entrance. She showed me what I needed to know, no more . It was enough. As long as I could see how her mind worked to shape the quan tum reality and allow us to travel, I had no complaint. I would satisfy my c uriosity about what made her tick another day.

As I watched, she shaped an image of a possible alternative Nexus in her mind, working from data we'd gathered from our own Nexus. As her image took form, I added my energy, doing my part to turn potential into reality. At thislevel, thought and will and expectations were tied together. I poured the energy of my mind into Amanda. Tremendous forces stirred to life around us both. Another world shone like a diamond in the polished mirror of controlled thought that was Amanda's mind.

The energy within the gate mounted to a peak, and I knew we could not hold back the transformation any longer. Our bodies dissolved and reformed as the gate recreated us from our DNA, changing only the genes that determined sex. As the green fog flared and filled with light, we stumbled out on the grass of another world.

The sex change is a fascinating process. It's always staggering to wi tness. I remembered the first time I'd seen it-I'd watched Don totter ou t of a gate as a woman and start screaming-not an unusual reaction. A lot of people went into uncontrolled hysterics in those first hours when the world was learning what the gates did.

By the end of the first day, scientists were hard at work studying the phenomenon. They soon discovered that the gates change a person's sex, but the 33

transformation, for the most part, leaves the genes alone. Your sex is determined by the addition or subtraction of a chromosome, nothing more. Since your ge netic makeup stays basically the same, you come out of a sex gate looking like yourself- or rather, as you would have looked if you'd been born the opposite sex.

However, the gates do make some changes in our genes-they eliminate any that are defective. That was why the gates cured the sick. Inferior genes vanish with your first passage, if you make it at all, and you emerge in glowing health with an unbeatable immune system.

I came out of the gate a young woman of eighteen, bursting with energy. We were on a new world at midday. I clasped my arms across my breasts and s hook my long auburn hair around my shoulders as I stared at the handsome male who stood a few feet away from me, surveying his surroundings with an air of possessive pride.

"We've reached an alternate world," he gloated, casting a look of triumph my way.

His intense blue gaze lingered for a moment on my bare flesh, and then moved to catalogue the landmarks around us. The feminine part of me want ed to be piqued at his blatant disregard of my rather (at the moment) obvious charms, but my more practical side agreed it was wiser to scout out the territory first, incase we had come out in some dangerous place.

"This doesn't appear to be a sister world to the Nexus," I poin ted out.

We stood a few paces away from the gate that had expelled us. Since nothing comes through the gate except the human body, we were both nude. A cold breeze made goose bumps stand up on my bare skin. The gate on this world was se t high on a hill and we could see the land stretched out for miles around us. D espite the cold wind, it reminded me of a desert landscape. Rocks and dirt, a few s hrubs clinging to the hillside, and no sign whatsoever of any civilization, much less the advanced technology of the gate masters.

"Looks like you missed on the first attempt." I couldn't resist a bit of a jab at my companion's ego after his obnoxious display of superiority earlier. I placed one hand on my hip and struck a pose, as if I were about to strut my stuff.

The man turned to me. He was tall-taller even than Amanda had been- with 34

the same icy blue eyes, set now in a lean, aristocratic face. His body w as unblemished, of course, but he reminded me of some swordsman of old, razor- sharp, light on his feet, ready for a duel. I studied his determined mou th and stubborn chin, then let my gaze drop lower to take in his powerful chest , tapering hips and long, muscular legs. Even the way he stood, weight balanced, re ady for action, told me that he had spent many years as a man. I wondered if he'd always been a scientist. Many Seconders started new careers after their change, and he had the air of someone who had once held some position of power.

"So, Amanda," I said, eyeing the proof of the sex change that jutted out between his legs. "What do I call you now?"

"Andrew will do," he snapped, swiveling once more to take in the c omplete view of our surroundings.

"Not Andy?"

"Andy." He laughed. "I'm afraid not. I'm no Andy."

I had to agree. In his masculine form, his natural authority was even mo re evident. Already, I could feel my female hormones kicking in, responding to the strong male vibe he emitted. The sand and rock around us looked mighty uncomfortable, but that didn't stop me from thinking about getting him down on the ground and mounting him. If he was only half as good as he no doubt thou ght he was ..."There's nothing here." Andrew jerked his head at the barren landscape. "We have to try again."

Disappointment tugged at me. He was far more attractive as a male. It suited his virile nature. When we emerged from the gate again, he'd be Amanda once more. And I would become Lee, my sexual cravings for this man unsatisfied.

For the moment, I told myself.

There was no time to indulge myself. The stasis set up by the gate maste rs was overloaded and doomed to fail. We had to find some alternative world s-and soon. Without a word, I turned and plunged once more between the glowing arches.

This time we skipped the mental battle and went right to work. I had to admit Andrew was good. Once again that diamond-bright mind shaped the image of an 35

alternate Nexus while I poured energy into its creation. The tremendous forces around us surged with a creative tempus as we combined our wills to a single purpose. Green light flared and we stumbled from the gate- Regaining my balance, I looked around and knew our second attempt had succeeded. We stood on a cliff overlooking a lush green valley. A city o f shining towers lay nestled in the curve of the hills on the opposite side of the valley.

"It's bigger than the city in our Nexus," I said, surveying the alien metropolis.

Twice as big, I estimated.

"This place-it has an old feel," Amanda said, planting her hands on her hips and tilting her head to one side as if listening for something.

As much as I wanted to listen, too, I found her stance extremely distracting.

Her nude body glistened in the sunlight of this new world and I feasted my eyes. She had a tall, lean beauty of her own, from her small breasts to her slim hips, to her long, well-shaped legs. Despite her nakedness, she managed to look elegant-even regal.

Aware that I was probably radiating sexual desire, I forced myself to look away and examine the world around me. I suspected it was empty-I sensed no trace of consciousness beyond our two minds. Yet, as Amanda said, a sens e of a once powerful presence, now long gone, seemed to hang in the air like the scent left behind by a rose as its petals drift to the ground.