The fiery lamp didn't belong to the electromagnetic spectrum, she had since been told, but to another spectrum altogether. And the high-tech establishments of Earth were just as blind to that spectrum as the aborigines had been to radio waves.
Though different, the spectrums could still influence each other. Solar flares, ionization, the dim pulls of gravity and magnetism somehow interacted with the transit phenomenon. The locals had noticed, there at Deviltop. Maybe something similar took place in the Bermuda Triangle and other haunted sites around the world.
They had harnessed the phenomenon, here in these other worlds. They didn't understand the it any more than Edison understood electricity, but they had yoked it to a transit scheme. The same way the random fireball had snatched Liz from Earth and dropped her into a different world, or dimension, or whatever it was -- even so, one could hitch a ride to a designated destination.
How many centuries had it taken them, Liz wondered, to plot the linkages, to determine by trial and error the paths from world to world, to concoct their half-understood controls and transit cocoons--
"Awake!" growled the insistent voice.
A spicy aroma tickled her sense of smell. Did the scent come from the creature above her, or from some measure at revival? Liz pried her eyes open and blinked against the light. A blurry shadow reared back.
She felt disconnected from her limbs. Her sponsor must have doped her up to go through transit. She fought the shroud of sluggishness and managed to wiggle the fingers of her right hand. Lord, give me strength, she prayed silently. Now for the other fingers, and toes -- and memory.
Why had her sponsor taken her through transit again? Last she remembered, she had a permanent placement, gardening for her benefactor while waiting word from the plotters. Someday they would trace the path back to Earth. Enough humans had come through on nature's spontaneous transits that the biocare systems now had sufficient information for the upkeep of humans. Liz could expect to live to a healthy old age while waiting, waiting, waiting for a chance to go home again.
YOU ARE READING
All Kindreds
Science FictionBiblical science fiction, a truly narrow niche! Written for those with sincere faith and enough humbleness to realize we do not comprehend everything in existence.
