Palin remained still, observing, before his blue eyes turned to Clay. “Hello, John Clay.”
Clay grinned. “Hello, Palin.”
“We are pleased to see you again.”
“So are we.”
They both glanced back when Caesare groaned painfully. Palin’s medic was pressing a thin silver patch against his lower abdomen with another to his back. Clay quickly stepped forward to help as the medic began to pull Caesare up onto his feet.
Once up, the medic tucked his head under Caesare’s arm for support. Without a word, he walked Caesare forward to the portal and stepped through, just as the first man carrying Dulce had done.
Palin clasped his hands behind his back and, with a hint of humor, raised an eyebrow at Alison, DeeAnn, and Borger. None of them had moved an inch. “Have you not informed your friends about our first meeting?”
“Oh, I have,” Clay mused. “But there is nothing like seeing this first hand.”
Palin nodded and kept his smirk. He stepped back to the portal before turning around to face Clay and the others again. He looked curiously at them. “Are you coming?”
65
The temperature change stepping into the portal was a shock. The hot, humid, and smoky air was instantly replaced by a cool and crisp atmosphere. In his mind, it triggered an old memory for Clay: like jumping from a hot tub into a cold swimming pool.
The place they followed Palin into was wide and clean. The lighting was also slightly dimmer, telling Clay that they were indoors. He judged the room to be roughly a hundred feet by another sixty wide. It appeared to be a perfectly cut rectangular area within lightly colored stone that resembled granite. While he scanned the walls, Clay instinctively turned back for Alison as she stepped timidly through. Behind her came a very startled DeeAnn and a fascinated Will Borger.
Grasping Alison’s hand, Clay turned back around to Palin and the strange room. It was filled with people running back and forth. Few seemed to even notice them. They were speaking a different language. Caesare and Dulce were nowhere to be seen.
Not far away, another bright flash of light burst from the air and a second portal opened. Two people, a man and a woman, dressed in identical light blue clothing, rushed past Clay and disappeared into its black center.
“Where are we?” Clay asked.
“This is our planet.”
Clay’s gaze followed several others who rushed past. “What is this place?”
Palin smiled, watching a mesmerized Borger study the entire room behind them. The stone walls towered over their heads, each with wide hallways at floor level. “It’s a hospital.”
“A hospital?”
Clay watched as the two who had run into the other portal came back out carrying a lifeless figure. A third worker instantly arrived, pushing a floating gurney onto which they lowered the figure carefully. They all then disappeared together down one of the hallways.
DeeAnn stepped forward. “Where’s Dulce?”
Palin studied her for a moment. “Dulce is your gorilla?”
“Yes.”
“The gorilla is being attended to. As is Mr. Caesare.”
“Attended to? What does that mean?”
“I mean, being cared for.”
DeeAnn’s eyes became huge and she had to keep herself from leaping forward to grab him. “Wait, she’s alive?!”
“Probably.”
“But… she…”
Palin answered DeeAnn before she could finish. “Died? She may have. We’ll know soon. Mr. Clay did activate the portal quickly which means your gorilla has a much better chance now.” He turned back to Clay. “I’m quite certain Mr. Caesare will survive his wounds.”
“So it is a life saving device.”
“That is correct. A combination energy source and computer, designed to fuse in the event of a critically incapacitated host. You may remember having seen one before.”
“Uh, yeah,” Clay nearly chuckled. How could he forget? It was Palin’s device that had been activated. Clay thought of something. “What did you mean back there when you said, ‘you’re learning?’”
“You used the device I gave you to save the gorilla, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew it could be used only once.”
“I suspected.”
Palin’s face softened. “Then I meant exactly what I spoke. You are learning, John Clay. You’re learning that there is more to life than simply being at the top of the food chain.”
On the far side of the room, Borger witnessed the appearance of a third portal, and more people hurrying toward it. “Does everyone have a cube?”
“Not everyone,” Palin replied.
“How do they work? How much energy do they require?”
“The energy required is very large. Two-way tunnels can be activated from great distances with the help of these devices. However, a one-way tunnel is much more limited, both in distance and energy.”
Alison gasped. “That’s how you did it? That’s how you saved him!”
Palin cocked his head. “Saved who?”
“Dirk. Our dolphin! When you were on Earth!”
“Correct,” he nodded. “It was at great cost, but your facility was just within range for a one-way tunnel.”
“What great cost?”
“These portals are very complex. They require large amounts of energy to establish a tunnel. A two-way tunnel, initiated from one of our portable energy sources, is more efficient and requires less energy. A one-way tunnel doesn’t have an initiating endpoint. Instead, the process is far more difficult. Without a source, the one side must bore a hole, which requires an enormous amount of energy. Energy of which we have little left.”
“But you still did it.”
“We did it twice, Ms. Shaw,” Palin corrected. “The first was pulling your dolphin out from under an explosive device. The second time was delivering him back to you. In hindsight, given how much energy we lost, it was not a wise decision.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because we were grateful. Your dolphin saved us, and as I said, there is much more to life than being at the top of the food chain.”
DeeAnn interrupted. “I’m sorry, but I need to see Dulce. I need to know if she is all right!”
Palin nodded. “Very well.”
He led them into another hallway, cut from the same stone as the rest of the room. As they walked, Borger studied the low ceiling, which appeared lit, but he couldn’t find any lights. It was almost as if the air itself was illuminated. They passed several doors and felt the refreshing wisps of dry, cool air against the perspiration on their skin. Palin slowed at the fifth door and pushed it quietly open. Inside was the medic that had carried Dulce from the smoke strewn jungle.
Dulce’s still body lay on a smooth examination table with several strange devices hanging over her from above. The medic was moving a flat surface from one of the devices back and forth across her small furry body.
“What is that?”
“The cells in our body, just as in yours, are energy driven. And energy travels in frequencies. The device he is using radiates special frequencies that stimulate cellular activity and, in this case, repair.”
“Is she alive?”
“The definition of life, or death, extends beyond what your world currently understands. Life within a body is comprised according to our cellular structure. And cells remain usable longer than you know.” Palin turned from Dulce’s body back to DeeAnn. “Death does not always come quite as swiftly as you may think.”
“How much longer are cells usable?” Borger asked.
“Not long, but long enough that your world might see it as bringing someone back from death. In reality, the body had not fully died yet.”