A chill raced down my spine at that image. I couldn't say why, but a feeling of deep melancholy swept over me, although I'm normally an optimistic gu y. I gazed at the distant towers and felt an unexpected reluctance to venture between their silent walls. From the troubled look on Amanda's face, I knew she was experi encing the same premonition of trouble. My pattern sense set off alarm bells in my head, telling me I was about to find out something I'd rather not know. There are somesecrets you wish you had never heard, and I knew with deadly certainty that such a secret lay in the city at the far end of the valley.

The light blurred around Amanda's body for an instant as she conjured a toga-like dress and sandals out of the quantum level of reality. As much as I enjoyed ogling her naked body, I saw her point. We had a long walk ahead of us.

I furrowed 36

my brow in concentration and looked down. I was wearing a t-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. We exchanged a glance and without a word started down the rough path that hugged the side of the cliff.

The silence around us only deepened as we approached the city. My scalp prickled.

"Hey, quick question," I said.

"What?" Amanda's glance darted from building to building, but the only sound was the wind moaning between the towers.

"If this is an alternate world, then the gate masters that built this Nexus aren't the same as the ones that built our Nexus, right?"

"Correct." The superior tone was back in her voice. "I'm no expert on quantum theory, but that much seems obvious."

I remembered Rissa remarking that she was a social biologist.

"Don't you study the evolution of societies? The alternate universes must be perfect for your research."

"Exactly." She actually unbent enough to smile at me. "I have a lways been fascinated by evolution. If there is a master consciousness underlying quantum reality, evolution is its tool for shaping the future."

"You must appreciate the effect the sex gates have on Seconders, then."

"I do." For the first time she seemed excited. "By eliminating defective genes and improving our minds, they have advanced our evolution by perhaps millions of years."

"There's a limit, though."

An amused laugh rippled out of her mouth. "Only if you wish to remain human."

"Sorry, but I do." I dropped the subject, sensing another argument. "But what about this world. Do you think evolution here was radically different?"

"Hard to say without some more evidence. We know this world and ours were once the same, but at some point in its timeline, the gate masters made a decision that resulted in this alternate universe with its own evolutionary path. To actually pinpoint that moment of decision and then to follow the diverging paths ..." Her eyes

Top

37

glowed with enthusiasm.

"Great stuff," I broke in. "My point, though, is that we need to approach these towers with caution. It looks like our city, but that doesn't mean it's the same."

"I agree. I can sense the differences already." She was back to he r superior attitude.

We'd reached the first of the towers. I stopped to wipe the sweat off my brow and stared back along the path we'd taken to the cliff where the gate stood.

The bright green arch glowed out against the blue of a cloudless sky.

"Okay. We need to be cautious. That's all I'm saying." I tur ned back to the wall and without hesitating walked into it.

Wham! I slammed into the solid surface with a jolt that shook me clear d own to my toenails. The wall in front of me flashed, changing color from crystalline blue to blood red. There was a sharp crack of thunder and lightning danced between the buildings. I staggered back and regained my balance, rubbing my forehead where I'd smacked it a good one against solid stone. I wanted to dance around, rub various injured parts and spew out a string of curses, but damned if I was going to give Amanda that satisfaction. Her gloating look was bad enough.

"Some of the difference may be more subtle than others," she said with a straight face.

If she meant to hurt my feelings, because I'd failed to see that one coming, she goofed. Instead of getting angry, I laughed. A reluctant answering smile twitched on her lips. I started to wonder if she had a sense of humor after all.

I smiled back. I could hear Rita's voice inside my head, urging me to give her another chance. Hell, Rita would probably want me to sleep with her to get to know her better. Of course, Rita had a heart as big as Texas, but maybe it was starting to rub off on me.

A rumbling sound echoed across the valley. We both whirled around in tim e to see the sex gate on the hill blink out of existence.

"Goddamnit!"

This was a fine state of affairs. Our ride home had vanished into thin a ir.

Meanwhile, a quick scan of the towers confirmed they were the same as th ose on 38

our Nexus in one important way-they had no doors. If you couldn't simply walkinside, how the hell did you get in there?

"Goddamnit is right!" Amanda's mouth hardened into a grim line.

For the first time, we were in complete agreement.

39

CHAPTER FOUR.

"There have to be more gates inside the buildings," I said, mostly to reassure myself.

I pictured the arch inside our control room of our Nexus. That was the problem-we weren't on our Nexus.

"I'm certain there are."

Amanda stretched out a tentative finger and touched the wall in front of us, which glowed bright red where I'd walked right into it. At her touch light flared up the tower again and lanced from building to building like lightning. Another loud rumble split the sky.

"I hope that wasn't a second sex gate disappearing," I muttered.

"It's some sort of alarm system. It might be on automatic. This alternate world must be very close to ours. It looks like the gate masters also abandone d this world, but in this case they left behind a system to guard the city. I'm guessing it's a fairly sophisticated computer, and it made the gate vanish so we wouldn't be able to bring any more invaders through it."

Amanda's theory made sense when I ran it through a quick pattern analysis.

"So the computer is assuming we're hostile? Why would it assume that?"

She shot me another smug look. "Where's your pattern sense? These gate masters built a Nexus, which means they sent gates to an alternate Earth."

I glared at Amanda. My pattern sense was fine. My problem lay elsewhere.

I.

kept getting horny whenever I thought about how she'd looked naked, which was about once every thirty seconds. That's the problem with coming out of the gate- you're bursting with sexual energy. I was aching for a chance to get to know her, up close and personal, but first we had to find a way out of this situation . I gave my pattern sense free rein and saw at once what she was driving at.

"The gate masters left defenses here. The alternate Earth where they sent their gates didn't welcome their arrival."

She smiled at me. When she bothered to smile, she was a beauty. "Right!

They didn't like the idea of aliens interfering with their society. So they struck back."

40 I beamed at her like some kid who had won the prize at the county fair.

"The military took over the gates."

"Now you're cooking. I'm surprised it didn't happen on our world."

I knew the answer to that one. "That's because Messler founded the Church of the Gates, and made access to the gates a religious issue. That didn'

t happen on this alternate Earth. The military took over and eventually learned that some people can become Seconders. The next logical step would be to develop a race o f soldiers that could reach the Nexus as we did-"

"They attacked the gate masters." Amanda nodded, her face aglow. I sensed from her jubilant thoughts that she enjoyed these developments more than the ones on our own planet-not that we'd lacked for power grabs on Earth. "Who won, though? The city appears deserted." She frowned at me.

I thought through the rest of the pattern. "Looks as if the gate masters won and drove the invaders back to their Earth. They probably removed the gates from that world, declared it a failed experiment, and abandoned the Nexus. But first they put a computer system in place, in case the invaders one day developed their own gate and reached this world."

"And the computer was designed to destroy whatever gate they used to get here." Some of the glee died out of Amanda's eyes.

Chill bumps ran up my arms. Were we fighting an intelligent computer lef t behind by the gate masters? Had it had already destroyed the gates outside of the city so we couldn't use them? If so, we had to gain entrance into the towers or we would be stranded on this Nexus.

Amanda had reached the same conclusion. Her face paled. We fell into a gloomy silence as we walked down the wide, grassy lanes between the various outcroppings of crystal, hoping to spot some kind of doorway. But the walls of the featureless towers were smooth and hard. After about a half hour, I tired of aimless walking between the buildings.

"Okay, this isn't working." I stopped to stare up at a vast expanse of crystal towering into the air over my head. "If we touch the buildings this computer or whatever the gate masters left behind thinks we're invaders and triggers defensive 41

measures."

Amanda planted her hands on her hips and stared at me as if I were the village idiot. "True. But how do you get into a building without touc hing it in some way?"A grin twitched on my mouth as I tapped a finger to the side of my head. "By using the old noggin, my dear."

That made her angry. Her eyes flashed and her breasts heaved as she drew in an outraged breath. I took a moment to enjoy the picture before continuing my explanation.

"You're thinking like a normal human. Instead, we need to think in terms of the quantum beings we are rapidly becoming. Why is it that we can walk through the walls on our Nexus in the first place?"

"Because they were designed by the gate masters to function on a quan tum level where they are both energy and matter in constant flux. At the moment we walk through they become energy and let us pass."

It was my turn to look smug. "So if this wall insists on staying soli d, the answer is for us to become energy and pass through."

She maintained her haughty look, but I saw a shadow of fear deep in her icy blue gaze. I guessed she had pushed her development as a Seconder by goi ng through the gates as often as possible. That made sense given her obsessive interest in evolution. But our powers were still new to her.

She licked her lips. "Is that possible outside the gates?"

"Hey," I joked. "Mere atoms do it all the time. They exist in the physical world, become a pure energy wave and exist in the physical world again before e ven a millisecond passes. Your body is nothing but a collection of atoms."

I leered as I said that last sentence to take away the sting. Amanda's feminine hormones must have kicked in at last because she welcomed the leer and patted her hair. "A lot of atoms. Controlling them will be the tricky part."

"A quantum exercise in will and intent," I said. "Surely someon e with your intellectual gifts is more than up to it."

"I don't know. I haven't made the hundreds of trips through the gates that you 42

have."

Her sudden vulnerability touched me, and my male protective genes took over. I stepped closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her into an embrace. "You can do it. If you'll let me touch your mind, I can impart whatever knowledge you'll need."

She pressed her hand against my chest. I wondered if she could feel the thud of my heart under her outspread palm. The soft curves of her body melted against me. As her face lifted to gaze up into mine, it seemed only natural to b end over andplant a comforting kiss on her lips.

I was more than a little surprised when her moist, wet mouth opened and welcomed in my tongue. Suddenly, her mind was dead last on the list of t hings I wanted to touch. My hands grabbed her hips, then swept upward over her rib cage to her firm young breasts. As I cupped them, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed closer. Damn! The woman was a horny as I was. My hands squee zed her breasts and her nipples hardened to tight little nubs under the silken fabric of the toga she wore.

We might be marooned on an abandoned world, but I had to seize this moment. I might never get a chance at Amanda again. I kept on kissing he r as I pulled her down into the lush grass that grew between the crystal towers. The desperation of our situation vanished from my mind along with rational thought. I concentrated on the only important thing-finding the way to undress her as quickly as possible. I found the belt that held the toga together and unfastened it.

The two halves fell apart, exposing her nakedness as she lay back in the thick g rass. The smell of growing things surrounded us, along with older, deeper smells-the rich scent of the fertile earth and the musky scent of a woman ready for a man.

She was completely nude under the toga. I like a woman who doesn't bo ther with panties or bra. I made my own clothes vanish as I surveyed her body. Her white flesh gleamed against the dark green of the grass. The lush growth made a comfortable carpet as we lay together side by side. I stroked her body and was surprised when she responded by pressing closer to me.

With a smile, I bent over her breasts and took one taut nipple into my m outh. I 43

sucked slowly and gently, while her soft moans of pleasure echoed off th e tall, alien towers. I played with her other breast with one hand and explored the silky smooth flesh of her inner thighs with the other. As she grew more aroused, I stroked upward until my wandering fingers found the apex of her thighs. She shuddered with pleasure and opened her legs wide. Taking that for an invitation, I began exploring.

She was ready for me. I moved my body over hers and her eyes opened wide. She placed a restraining hand on my chest.

"Lee, there's something you need to know."