Barb looked like she’d gone ten rounds in a cage fight again. Seriously, how did she keep getting herself in situations where she had to punch people?

Maybe it was her personality.

Now that her shoulder was back in its socket where it belonged, she was definitely less grumpy but no less suspicious. Which was probably wise.

I just can’t believe these people want to hurt us. Jim watched the woman, Velanna, staring up into the swirling fissure that hovered above the village center.

Barb grabbed his elbow. “The gears are spinning,” she smirked. “What’s happening in that big brain of yours?”

Jim settled next to here where she leaned back against one of the still-standing huts.

“I’m trying to figure out what went wrong.” He turned his gaze back to Velanna. “She said my calculations couldn’t have gotten us to SoMa let alone through the barrier between the worlds.”

Barb leaned her head back. “And you trust her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Jim pinned her with a quiet stare. “Why not?”

“We need to work on your skepticism, Jim.” Barb shook her head.

Jim smiled. “Look, they don’t want us here. They want us to leave. So it’s in their best interests to help us get home.”

“They could just leave us in the forest and forget about us.”

Jim chuckled. “You’re a deeply mistrusting person.” He shifted his gaze to Meg and Jenny, helping gather up debris and shrapnel from the battle. “If they wanted to do that, they’d have done it already. And you know it.”

Barb sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

“And, besides, Reena’s still out there somewhere.” Jim waved his hand in front of them, looking out across the rolling green plains of Rainbow Valley. “We have to find her.”

“And you think the best way to do that is to trust them?”

Jim hesitated. “I think it’s a better idea to trust them than to push them away. Pretending that we actually understand any of this is only going to lead to more trouble.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I can’t get us home, Red. I don’t know how. So we need them.”

“So you’re saying I should be on my best behavior?” Barb lifted her eyebrows.

Jim sat forward with his elbows on his knees. “Well, kicking people isn’t a great way to make friends and influence people.”

“That’s deep. Did you read that in a book?”

“Just a feeling.”

Barb chuckled and closed her eyes, her expression turning rigid for a moment.

“Are you in pain?” Jim asked.

“Absolutely.” She opened one eye. “Don’t suppose you could get them to brew me another cup of that magic dirt tea, could you?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Jim unfolded his legs and got to his feet, stretching out his back and arms.

Velanna hadn’t moved from her spot, staring up into the rip. Meg was dusting her hands off at a pile of wood planks, but she faced him when she saw him stand. She smiled.

It felt natural to approach her. So that’s what Jim did.

She needs to not smile. Like, she really needs to stop, because that only makes her prettier, and she’s pretty enough as it is. And now I have to talk to her, and I’m going to sound like an utter moron. What am I asking for? Dirt tea?

“Is your sister okay?” Meg peered around him when he reached her.

“Smiling.”

Meg glanced up at him in surprise.

“No. Tea is what—Just, eyes. And smiling. And—words.”  He sagged and shut his eyes. “She’s fine. Thank you.”

Meg giggled. “You’re so strange.”

He sighed. “I’ve been called worse.” Jim scratched the back of his head. “Barb is—hurting. She’s asking for something called dirt tea?”

Meg’s laughter warmed him from the inside out.

“She probably means sukhadaya tea.” Meg still chuckled to herself. “It does taste like dirt, but it helps with pain. I’ll see if there’s some around. I’m sure there is.”

“Thanks.” Jim watched her as she passed him to enter a hut that was still standing.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked quietly to where Velanna stood, chin angled toward the interdimensional portal. It made a strange hissing sound, like points of static electricity all colliding at the same time.

“Is this similar to the portal you saw?” Velanna asked evenly.

She hadn’t turned, so Jim wasn’t sure how she’d known it was him. In this context, she didn’t seem as big as she had in the castle. Standing close to her, Velanna just barely reached his shoulder. Strange. She’d seemed so intimidating before—and during the battle—with her magic laser sword.

“Uh, yeah.” He stood at attention. “Yeah, it looks just like it.”

“Peculiar.”

“All of this is peculiar.”

Velanna chuckled softly. “I am certain it must seem so.” She faced him with a grim expression in her eyes. “But this is more peculiar than most.”

“How so?”

“Interdimensional rips close naturally unless an outside force exerts enough energy to keep them open.” Velanna pointed to the portal. “It remains open. It should have closed long ago.”

“So something is keeping it open,” Jim muttered.

“Precisely.” She turned back to the portal. “I cannot measure it without the proper equipment, but if my hypothesis holds true, this may only be the beginning of our troubles.”

Jim cleared his throat. “My sister is here, and she’s well enough.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“But my lab assistant isn’t.” Jim clenched and unclenched his fists. “So that means she’s out there somewhere?” He indicated the forest and the rest of the valley.

Velanna nodded but didn’t look at him. “The likelihood is high. On any normal occasion, I would posit that she had been lost in transit between the worlds. However, this is not a normal occasion. Far from it.”

Jim pressed his lips together.

“Another question, Mr. Taylor.” Velanna faced him with her arms folded.

“Jim.” He smiled. “You can call me Jim.”

“Jim.” Velanna chewed on the name for a moment. “Is your name not James?”

“That’s my full name. I go by Jim.”

Velanna wrinkled her nose. “Terraners and your informalities. It is quite beyond me.”

“Well, James is fine.” Jim shrugged. “That works for me.”

“Very well. A compromise, then. James.” Velanna bowed her head. “How did you intend to generate the necessary energy to open your locally traversable portal in Terran?”

Jim grimaced. “Well, that’s kind of top secret.”

Velanna arched an eyebrow. “I shall not tell.”

“Right.” Jim looked down. “I’ve been working with some agencies on a magnetic fusion generator.”

“Magnetic confinement fusion?” Velanna lifted her other eyebrow.

“Y—Yes.”

“Fascinating. I was not aware Terran had reached this level of scientific accomplishment.”

“Well, it’s not quite stable yet.” Jim set his hand on the back of his head. “But it was stable enough I thought we could try to at least create a portal. So maybe it was the power generation that had something to do with this?”

Velanna shook her head. “No, James. I can very confidently assure you that this situation,” she gestured to the portal, “had nothing to do with your calculations or your energy generation. Magnetic confinement fusion is a fine proposition and hypothesis for an intradimensional portal—a vortex, as they are more informally called—but it will not generate the energy required to completely form an interdimensional portal.” She sighed. “It requires a specific type and concentration of electromagnetic energy that I sincerely doubt your Terran engineers will develop in the next century.”

“Then—how?” Jim took a step closer to her. “How can this have happened?”

“All you were using was a magnetic fusion generator?” Velanna narrowed her eyes. “With a tokamak—the large reactors? With the current state of Terran technology, such a thing would encompass acres and acres of real estate.”

“My design is a little different.” Jim shuffled his feet. “It’s a more modular approach. Instead of the massive superconducting magnets—well, it uses electrostatic fields to trap fusion ions.”

“And then you transform the resulting neutrons into heat energy.” Velanna nodded. “Impressive, James. Very impressive.”

Wow. She really does know what she’s talking about. He shook himself. “So we developed two prototypes for the experiment,” Jim said, ignoring the blush creeping into his cheeks. “I was monitoring one. Reena was monitoring the other.”

“Curious.” She turned back to the portal. “Curious indeed.” She glanced over her shoulder. “It seems Margaret has brought tea to your sister, sukhadaya I assume. Her injuries would most likely be painful.” Velanna turned on her heel. “Remain here with Margaret and Tzaitel. They will bring you both to the castle as soon as they are finished here. We will resume our conversation there.”

She strode away, robes fluttering around her as she took long-legged strides toward one of the saddled horses waiting at the perimeter of the village. She mounted it gracefully and rode off toward the bright white-stone castle shining in the distance.

“Cool.” Jim gave a thumb’s up after she was gone.

A soft laugh behind him drew his attention. Tzaitel smiled with her hands on her hips.

“Mother does that often.” The younger alien woman came to stand beside him. “Think nothing of it. When she has a thought, usually she need to pursue it right away.”

“I understand.” Jim shoved his hands back into his pockets. “She told me to stay here with you and Meg and that you guys will bring me and Barb back to the castle.”

“A reasonable suggestion.”

Jim inhaled slowly and looked back up at the portal. “She thinks it’s going to get worse.”

Tzaitel pressed her lips together. “Mother always tends to think that.”

“How often is she right?”

Tzaitel didn’t look at him. “She usually is.”

Jim looked down. “Can I ask you a question?”

Whirling to face him, Tzaitel smirked. “That is one.”

Jim laughed. “What—happened with that monster? Like—you and Meg with the stick fighting? And your mom with the laser sword?” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen fighting like that.”

“It is an Celtican martial art called Andaiku.”

“Celtican?”

“My people.” Tzaitel pressed her hand to her chest. “My family’s people. This world is called Andaria, but our people were the Celtican race.”

Jim paused. “Were?”

Tzaitel blinked and offered a sad smile. “Yes. Were.” She glanced at the castle. “My mother and father came here to Rainbow Valley to make a new life, but my mother brought with her the training she had received as an Andai master. She has been training me for most of my life—and Margaret as well.”

“But you don’t have a laser sword?”

“Not yet.” Tzaitel lifted her chin. “Someday soon, both Margaret and I aspire to be as accomplished a fighter as my mother is. But there are very few enemies in this area who require an energy saber. This is only the second time in a hundred years that I have seen my mother wield her blade.”

Jim nodded.

And stopped.

“Wait. A hundred years?”

Tzaitel adjusted her headscarf. “Yes.”

Jim frowned. “You’re—a hundred years old?”

Tzaitel smiled. “No.”

Jim exhaled. “Okay, I was going to say—that seems unlikely.”

“I am one-hundred and fifty years old.” Tzaitel’s eyes sparkled. “My mother and father are—much older.”

“But that’s impossible.” Jim ran a hand into his hair. “How is that possible?”

“We are not human, Mr. Taylor.” Tzaitel walked away from him. “We are nothing like you.”

Jim fell into step beside her. “But you look human. Human enough.”

“There is no call to be rude.” Tzaitel’s eyes narrowed at him, although her mouth curled up in the corner.

Jim flushed. “Sorry. I don’t—I didn’t—wow. I don’t even know what to say to any of that.” He gazed up at the sky. “A hundred and fifty years.”

“Give or take.”

“You were born before the Civil War began.” Jim clutched his hair with one hand. “When Abraham Lincoln was elected president. That’s—outrageous.”

“None of these references are relevant to me, Mr. Taylor.”

“I know. I get it. Sorry.”

Tzaitel chuckled. “You should spend more time with my mother. She is more than 800 years old.”

Jim stopped short, his breath catching. “Eight—eight hundred?” His heart raced. “You’re telling me that your mother was born in the 1200s?”

Tzaitel looked back at him. “According to your calendar, yes. Time was measured by a different standard here—at least it used to be.” Tzaitel nodded to where Meg was kneeling next to Barb. “Meg, your human friend has many questions.”

Meg grinned. “It’s a human thing.”

“I begin to agree with you.” Tzaitel set her hand on Meg’s shoulder. “Be wary of this young man. I believe I have short circuited his brain.”

“How?” Meg peered around her sister to look at Jim.

“I told him Mother’s age.”

Meg laughed. “Oh, well that makes sense.” She stood and brushed the dirt off her trousers. “I think we’ve cleaned up as much as we can around here. We ought to head back. Are you okay to ride?”

“To ride?” Barb narrowed her eyes. “Ride what? A car? A four-wheeler?”

Jim pointed behind them. “A wagon. Definitely a wagon.”

Barb groaned. “I think I’ll just stay here.”

Jim chuckled and reached his arm down to her. “Come on. Let’s get you someplace where you can recover, and then we’ll start looking for Reena.”

Barb grunted as he helped her up, and then she pushed him away to hold herself up. “I’m fine. I don’t know if going to their creepy castle is the best idea. We should just go look for Reena now.”

Barb eyed Meg suspiciously as the girl climbed into the wagon, casually chatting with Tzaitel about something.

Jim shook his head. “I don’t know where to start, Barb. We know nothing about this world. We need them, or we’ll never find her.”

“They’re not going to help us.” Barb pressed her lips together. “Mark my words, Jim. You’re right. They want us out of here, but searching this whole countryside for one lost fourteen-year-old? They aren’t going to do that. They don’t owe us anything.”

She limped away, headed for the wagon. She clutched her injured shoulder in one hand but kept her chin raised, proud and stubborn as always.

Jim sighed and watched Meg hold out a hand to her, and Barb ignored it, climbing into the wagon on her own. Always something prove. That was Barb.

Jim glanced back at the swirling portal still hanging over the village. The rest of the Josharons milled around it as though it wasn’t there, although none walked underneath it. Jim turned and backed away from the rip toward the wagon, keeping the portal in sight the whole time until he reached the horse.

“What is it?” Meg called down to him.

He looked up at her and then back at the rip. “I can’t be sure, but I think it’s bigger.”

Tzaitel gathered the reins in her hands. “Climb on, Mr. Taylor. We still have much to learn.”

Jim climbed into the bed of the wagon and sat down just as Tzaitel got the horses moving. The wagon jolted forward.

As they headed up the trail toward Prism Castle, he watched the portal fading into the distance. Velanna had said it was supposed to close on its own.

What would happen if it didn’t?