'That's just my point, to care you have to really feel. Each one, separately, from inside, one to one. Empathy means my self-interest equals yours, if we don't agree there's no empathy and nothing can change. We don't have empathy for people of the third world until we feel ourselves in their place, equally, we don't have empathy for the world unless we feel it inside us. The problem is we don't actually live long enough to really feel it properly. By the time we have learned what empathy really means the next generation is re-learning new 'isms' or re-hashing old ones, so the merry-go-round goes on. But we now know we can survive with relative ease, globally there are more that enough resources to go round, and at the same time allow the planet to replenish itself. Culturally we still spend too much time looking over our shoulders in fear that someone is going to take what we have away from us. There's no sense of permanence any more to hold us together in a forward motion. The old religions provided this, even communism had an external potentiality to aim for, a spiritual dimension, if you like, outside of us. But all that's gone now, there are just too many alternatives to believe in, none of which have a claim on ultimate authority. So we are thrown on ourselves in a way unprecedented in history just at the time when we might fail the planet. If things don't change soon, we risk a return to scarcity, and will almost certainly resort to the re-use of worn out, threadbare cultural mechanisms as if they were new. Even now in the absence of any unifying truths we find new fictions to excuse the enslaving of individuals according to some doctrine or other. Or we find 'good' reasons to continue tearing up the Earth. It doesn't actually matter which 'ism' you take up, the point is they are all regressive, backward looking. So we take what we want first, and ask questions later. Most people don't have the luxury of having the choice to exercise their conscience about it. For the Amazonian peasant, not to despoil the rain forest is to die of hunger in the present, he's not in a position to consider the future. The change we need is to feel the Earth's mortality as if it was our own and to make Her our new G.o.d through each person alive individually giving the Earth Her due. I've though very hard about it Penny, and I believe our trump-card is that I cannot think any generation would consciously prepare itself to be the last. Our task is to give people the resources to have the s.p.a.ce and time to change enough so that through their empathy with the Earth, they can finally accept their individual mortality and more importantly through it, the immortality of the species when linked to that of the Earth. That's why what 'They' are up to, has got to be what we are up to, but we can't do it in the same way. The Earth is as important to them as to us. If I am right, their continued existence has no importance for us as ours has none for them. We each have the same business to attend to but for quite different motives. So let them have their own family business secrets if they like, as long as we converge on the important things.'

He paused this was a much longer speech than he had intended at the outset, but he felt he was working something out in his own mind and needed to say it all: 'What worries me is we seem to share a common technology, at least their technology parallels ours in some way and Alexander it seems is expected to manage the cross-over. If he is the one chosen by 'Them' it makes sense to leave it to him to show us in what way we can use their system to mesh with ours.'

Penny searched his face. Whether it was the strain, the tensions of the last weeks or just the sheer hard work, she did not know, but she was unable to stem the tears which were flowing silently from her. They clasped hands in a bond which would take them both time to fully appreciate.

'You see.' He went on animatedly, now holding her again. Penny bit her lip and allowed Ric to continue.

'So the problem of the Earth is actually shared, between us and 'Them' in JNO, and with Alexander. We've got the opportunity now to make this a last ditch attempt to save Her.'

'We start now?' she whispered.

'Yes. Now.' They held each other tightly. They held each other for what seemed like a long time and Penny felt a surge of s.e.xual desire not sensed since her first sight of Alexis. This was a man she knew understood her needs and ambitions, her feelings for her son and above all shared her awareness of 'Them' in the same way.

'We've a great deal to do,' she said softly. 'I think we need to sit down and work out our strategy for JNO, sector by sector.

Chapter 15.

Alexander had no idea of the pa.s.sage of time since his confrontation with the computer screen. His pursuit of the intruder on the 'sphere had taken all his mental capacities, and he felt his body crumple as if from far away. Moments before Hep pulled him back, he thought about staying in the 'sphere for ever, a mind like the other flashes he had encountered, his body left useless in its chair, with what was the core of him liberated as pure thought. So seductive was this possibility that he resented Hep pulling him back to his body and sought to fight him off. Hep, like rescuing a drowning man struggling against his own saving, had cut him off from the 'sphere and he had fallen back into his unconscious body.

He woke to find himself in a bed, in a pleasant, simple room, with net curtains in a bay window. There was a fifties style wardrobe suite, a self-a.s.sembly bedside-table complete with frilly lamp. In the middle of the window was a kidney shaped dressing table with a central heart shaped mirror chamfered at the edge and two half-mirrors on piano-hinges at either side. A stripy dressing gown hung on a bra.s.s hook of the painted oak-grained door to the room. A jug of orange juice and a clean gla.s.s were on the bedside table. He moved his head to find he was in striped pyjamas, and was immediately aware that his head seemed no longer to be part of his body. He had the mother and father of all headaches and found it least painful to remain as still as possible. His mind fortunately was unexpectedly quite lucid. Bodily things could be separated from it.

This was a new sensation. He found will-power alone enabled him to disconnect his body from his mind. A headache like this one would once have prevented him from thinking of anything else. Now mind and body could be separated into two quite different areas of being. The experience of the 'sphere had enriched his thinking powers. As if a door in his mind was ajar. Access to the 'sphere was simply a matter of desiring to enter. In his mind's eye he saw it literally as a door offering a threshold to the Chronosphere. He could push the door open and cross the sill. His body, contradicting his mind, told him to do no such thing, it had had enough for now and he wasn't to push his luck.

Before he could argue this one out with himself, the door to the room gently opened. He waited until the someone crossed his field of vision, it being unwise to move his head. The dark face taking up the light belonged to Marina and he quickly conjured up his memory of her on the stair at Markham. Her presence filled him with a pleasure which surged involuntarily but wonderfully from his loins. He was certainly pleased to see her and worried she would be aware of his involuntary desire.

'You're awake then.' Marina placed a cool hand on his forehead. 'How do you feel?' The sound of her voice so real and so human, was a surprising contrast to the way his mind felt and which had so disembodied him. The real world of people had felt extremely remote. This separation of body and mind seemed to be something 'either-or'. He could embrace one or the other, but not both at once. This continual jumping from one state of being to another was uncomfortably disruptive, he would have to learn to handle things better if it were not to drive him mad. For now, his sense of reality resided entirely in the pulsing of his rock-like erection, as he luxuriated in Marina's presence. She was all velvet softness, making feel him safe. He could give himself up to her and forget all about the complexities of his upbringing and his confused relationships. With her he felt....uncluttered.

'Don't move your head, Hep said you'd have quite a headache when you woke'

'I'm not,' he whispered. 'Rather I can't - did he say how long it would last?'

'Not long, you'll be okay soon'.

'Stroke my head again, it helps.' But he was more aware of the extreme tension inside his pyjamas than anything else. Marina sat on the bed and stroked his forehead with a cool hand. The curve of her cheek, the way her lashes moved, the blackness of her eyes, the softness of her skin, her touch, made most of the pain in his head slide away and the ache was now in his rampant p.e.n.i.s, his body reacting involuntarily to her touch. She had to be aware of the affect she was having.

She smiled, her face close to his, she leaned forward and kissed him very gently, but fully on the lips. He could not believe it. He tried to kiss her back, but an explosion in his head prevented him from doing anything requiring action on his part. He relaxed and Marina holding his head in both her hands, kissed him again, deeply, soothingly.

'You are full of tension, Hep says I am to relax you, the headache will go and there's only one sure way to relax a man,' she grinned broadly. She stroked his belly under the pyjamas top, and loosening the draw string to his bottoms, exposed him. As he could not move his head to see, he concentrated on the wavy line of the crack in the plaster of the ceiling. If this was supposed to be therapy he could take as much as she wanted to give.

'Let everything go and leave it to me,' she hummed huskily. As she worked on him his mind first went into a tumult and then gradually emptied. The sensations from her hands, lips and tongue sent emollient tides of tranquillity coursing through his nerve ends to the core of his brain. Wonderfully the pain ceased by degrees and other more vigorous emotions began to take over. Marina sensing the change, began expertly to ma.s.sage his body so he again relaxed and closing his eyes left his body to her and his mind to float above him. He was so far in her hands, that he did as she bade and left everything to her. It was she who controlled the climax to which she eventually brought him, which was enormously prolonged and seemed to come from somewhere deep inside his head and his spinal cord at the same time. As his body responded to her ministrations, the tension was drawn, sucked out with his sperm, like an evil spirit from him - letting go its grip from the top of his head and leaving smoothly through the soles of his feet. He slept like a baby.

When he woke, the headache was gone and he was rested and full of well-being. He was alone. He rose from the bed, went to the window and parted the opaque, heavy, white nets. There were suburban mock-Tudor houses on the opposite side of the tree studded road, lining broad gra.s.s verges. The house he was in was of similar design. Expensive cars were in the drives, mostly new. Several had personalised number plates. On this evidence he decided he was in some leafy suburb, probably in North London - Stanmore or Cannon's Park. Somewhere salubrious but totally anonymous. He did not recognise the car parked in the drive to the house. It was not in JNO livery. He opened the wardrobe and finding clothes to fit him, dressed in jeans and shirt, and opened the door. The staircase led to a s.p.a.cious, dark, oak panelled entrance hall. The whole place was unchanged from the 50's as if owned by elderly people who having made it the epitome of modernity in 1955 had done nothing to it since. He opened the door to the large front lounge and went in. Thea was sitting in a flowery armchair, by the baronial-style fireplace, cool as the sphinx, her hair smoothly raised up on her head in a tight bun.

'h.e.l.lo Alexi mou, you seem sprightly.' She laughed pleasantly and stood to embrace him. Alexander was still in a state of relaxed empty headedness thanks to Marina's skill. He embraced his twin as if it were quite normal for both of them to be in this house and to find her in the room was quite expected. Gradually a sense of reality filtered through to him and he realised he had no idea where he was nor how long he had been there; nor yet any reason for his being there; or what might happen next. It came to him that nothing had made any rational sense since the meeting with Lucina. Rationality had gone out of the window and normality was the appearance and disappearance of G.o.ds, demi-G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. An Alice-Through-the-Looking-Gla.s.s world where what was real was out of reach and what was illusion, all too real. He managed, just, to keep the sensation of Marina as a definite link to reality. Otherwise he had pa.s.sed through an invisible barrier, and could now go back and forth without warning or reason. Thea said nothing, he sat obliquely to her on the matching print sofa.

'Where's Marina?' His question betrayed the thought uppermost in his mind.

'She's not far away. She's with Hep. They're busy on security matters.' He wanted to know what she meant by 'security matters' but he let it go, rightly a.s.suming from her demeanour that Thea had other things on her mind. Before letting her take the inevitable lead, he asked, 'Where are we. And what are we doing here?'

'We're in one of Marina's safe houses, you don't need to know where. What we are doing will become clear as we go on, I'm sorry to be cryptic, but it's hard to explain simply, just trust me and Hep. Where's Zeus' net?'

'I don't know, Hep must have taken it from me when I pa.s.sed out. Why?'

'You'll need it. Stay here and I'll get it from him.'

Alone in the room Alexander delved into his mind to see if he could easily find his mental door. Locating it at once he pushed it fully open and was immediately peering into the sunlit terrace of Psathi. He saw Mnemosyne, she smiled up at him, Hera stood at the railing high above the blue Mediterranean. He could choose to enter or not. He chose not and mentally pulled the door to. Then, experimentally he went back to it and opened it once more. He saw Pannie in a clearing in a wood, quite naked and intently stroking his swollen p.e.n.i.s, an impatient nymph lay open-legged on the gra.s.s at his feet, waiting. He mentally shut the door again. He could control the door but not what he would find on the other side.

'When you've finished playing with your new toy, perhaps we could get down to some important business,'

Thea handed him the fine golden mesh which he threw over his shoulders in a shimmer of colour, as she broke into his thoughts on L1.

'You're getting better at the 'sphere, but it's still difficult for you, the net will help, without it, it would be hard for you if not impossible. It's going to be difficult enough, that's why Zeus didn't want you on the 'sphere and only gave you Hep's net as an aid when he knew there was no alternative in the time available. It simply takes too long to learn how to use the 'sphere and mortals don't live long enough to make it worth their while. Too soon you're a mere spirit on the way to Hades. Still you're all we've got; so the sooner we get you trained the better. By the way, the 'door' image is a good one as a mnemonic. I see you can now summons it any time, but you need to be able to know where and when and above all why you want to be on the other side.'

As Thea communicated with him, like a hammer blow to his psyche he realised this 'other world' simply wasn't ever going to go away. Illusion was reality and reality had...well...slipped away.

'Alexander, I wish you'd pay attention to what I'm trying to get through to you! Yes, yes, you'd better get used to the idea that things have changed. You've crossed the threshold, there's no way back. We have to make the 'sphere work for you despite the steepness of the learning curve. At least Mnemosyne gave you a head start. You have a task to fulfil which only the offspring of a G.o.d and mortal can do if it's to work properly. So let's stop all the angst and get on with it. Zeus made you and we are to train you, and I'm here to see it gets done.'

Clouds of doubt again rose to interfere with the thought meld. Unlike Pannie in the same situation, Thea would have none of it. She had shared a womb with this mortal, she knew him.

'Let me begin by explaining how the Chronosphere works.'

They continued to communicate on L2. Anyone entering the room would have seen two people sitting silently. Thea was well into the thought meld, when Alexander soundlessly interjected to separate the bond. His mortal half was in danger of comprehension overload. Though he absorbed the facts, his lack of experience prevented him from understanding more than a fraction of the real meaning. He sensed her exasperation and, her resignation to his weakness. More worrying was a transmission from her of the notion that in the circ.u.mstances, he would probably learn best by doing. She would therefore launch him on his task with the knowledge all of them had so far implanted in his mind and let the rest of his understanding come from confrontation with events. They would all tune in on the 'sphere whatever they were doing and take shifts to be personally available.

Thea was to remain on duty for the time being. Others would a.s.sist as circ.u.mstances determined - on call. Hera would wait in the wings as befitted her status and Zeus kept his normal aloof overview of everything. All this occurred place on L2 and on balance he considered it best that the finer details of this condensed communication was largely outside the span of his comprehension. It was like listening to a foreign language he got the gist but missed the gradations of meaning.

This part of the mutual thought transmission, over, he felt Thea prompt him towards the door in his mind. She urged him to push it open. Beyond the threshold he was aware of streams of light on a dark background. They were like electric pulses made manifest, parcels of information conducted along cables of light. He tentatively put out his hand to touch, and feeling nothing, ventured further.

Thea's presence urged him onwards, a spur and a strength. She was like a coach with faith in his ability to venture difficult manoeuvres while she willed him on, supportively, at his own pace. With an effort of will, he crossed the threshold. Immediately his mind was struck with a ma.s.s of information which streamed through and round him like visible rays. He was buffeted, but unharmed.

This was not the same Chronosphere he had travelled before. It was a poor imitation lacking its breadth and depth. By comparison it was one dimensional. It was merely a large switchboard for transmitting information. No being was detectable and some of the pulses of information material seemed to become lost, then slowed down and were extinguished for lack of directional power. It was a shoddy kind of 'sphere.

Thea's mind propelled him onwards to follow the direction of the mainstream, which thinned as it went, but with a surprising current of force despite the detectable and continuous loss from its overall ma.s.s. His mind followed and hovered at a point where the main-stream of information fed into what he understood to be a computer terminal. A faint code number was etched at the entry port which Thea prompted him to memorise.

The mainstream was joined by another branch of electrical activity. He sensed the link to be poorly accomplished. It was attempting to divert the mainstream, but without success. As his mind flicked around the system, the activity, disconnected and shifted to flow round the impulses which held his thought pattern. Amoeba like, it surrounded the electrical thrust of his mind and he sensed it as trying to read him as if he were a message. Unable to shake off the sensation of being surrounded and absorbed he panicked only to discover he could do nothing. The panic subsided a little when he found he was not cut off again from the body he had left on the other side of the door, as he feared from his Markham experience.

Grateful for his continual ability to summons the door icon before him, he could see Thea on the other side of the sill, urging him onwards. The surrounding electrical field as if finding him incomprehensible, swung away and reattached itself to the main-stream. Thea was urging him to follow the direction of the intruding flow. This was less easy as it was much weaker than the mainstream. A faint, but regular pulse, indicated its direction, which was easily lost in a ma.s.s of static material which was without any apparent purpose. Thea stayed in touch on L2 and by following her instructions he was able to hold on. Eventually the intruding line strengthened which made it easier to follow. This line also ended in a computer terminal. He noted the code number of this too. Thea was beckoning at the door, he crossed the threshold and came to his body in the lounge, maintaining the L2 link with his twin.

In his absence Hep had arrived and was already linked into L2 with them. An intense mind-meld ensued which Alexander found he could more or less follow and even contribute now and then, mostly with queries. This triadic communication covered much ground, occasionally hitting level 3 nuances which intrigued Alexander's mind, but it was in too rarefied a range for his full comprehension: it was like they were speaking the language he was learning but at normal pace and with their own much more extensive vocabulary.

Bit by bit he was uncovering more and more of the 'sphere. He noted how Hep and Thea used it smoothly and easily as naturally as breathing. If anything they were more at home in the thought regions of the 'sphere than in the physical reality of the world. It occurred to him that this was their natural plane of existence rather than the physical world and was thereby even more amazed at his ability to link to them at all.

Hep's mind was finely honed, intensely practical and inventive, Thea's ordered, clear and honest. By contrast Alexander felt clumsy and uncouth, an ignorant interloper. Several times he almost disengaged. He had been okay with Pannie, his simpler mind was equally at home on the lower levels of the 'sphere, and Alexander had felt less intimidated. These more august users ignored his feelings of inadequacy, including him fully with their intertwining thoughts as if he were an equal. He was flattered, and kept pace as best he could, lapsing into reverie when they soared and dipped beyond his understanding.

He understood through his limited grasp that the information stream he had observed and followed was not the Chronosphere at all, but the crude internet invented by mortals for their own s.p.a.celess communication and the system being used by Penny for her grand plan. It was nothing compared with the 'sphere but little as it was, it was all they had. His visit there had two purposes.

First they agreed that to carry out his task, Alexander needed to know more about the way GAIANET used the Internet to feed into HIGO. It was important for him to know intimately how it worked. To understand how it was to be tied into the 'sphere without anyone, G.o.ds or mortals knowing the two were to be linked, apart, of course, from the senior members of the Firm, who would keep the knowledge secure. He needed to be able to mind-travel between the 'sphere and the Internet along the links only they could make.

Secondly he grasped, that Hep was still very worried about the phantom hacker he had spotted at Markham, whom Alexander had followed so arduously. Hep was clear about the origins of the mind behind the mystery hacker and was sure there was a Hadean counterpart to Alexander somewhere. The existence of a second computer attempting to divert the main stream from HIGO, (Alexander had learned from the meld that the entry node numbers tallied with Markham) was positive proof of a Hadean attempt to check out what was going on.

Hades, probably in some kind of alliance with Chronos, had managed to get a messenger from his own netherworld communications through a fissure in the barrier erected by the Olympians so long ago and it had made contact with the human internet. How long until they breached the Olympian Chronosphere itself? Alexander correctly a.s.sumed that Hades and Olympus were two systems working in parallel and so ought never to meet. What if Hades was planning his own link? Not only was this unimaginable, it would mean unknowable changes would be put in train to undermine the status quo of aeons between the two realms and the relationship of G.o.ds, mortals and the Underworld. Between the past and present. This would be a deliberate act of provocation, the consequences were so unpredictable that they could not be fathomed by even Hep's own powers of prophecy. Again Hep wondered if Zeus knew what he was doing.

Thea, herself struggled to find a pattern to so many different possibilities of action, that for once she was rendered unable to respond, a fact which Alexander found hard to understand and so thought he must have got it wrong.

Heps' first thoughts about a Hadean messenger, were of Core, his sister, called Persephone when she emerged from the underworld; one of the few messengers from Hades allowed to cross both ways. Hep and Thea had spent a good deal of time on L3 checking. Alexander was of the opinion they had discounted her since her movements were prescribed and well known, although Alexander was not sure they had put her entirely above suspicion. Only Hermes was able to pa.s.s as messenger between and he was above suspicion. The only other go-between was Pan whom they knew well. There were no other dwellers of the nether-world able to leave, unless it was Hades himself, who, to the best of their knowledge had only left once for unusually necessary medical attention. Hep concluded things were very serious if his uncle was out and about mixing the past with the present w.i.l.l.y-nilly. The effect on the living earth of his underworld powers, and the release of what was locked up there, were unknowable, and he shuddered at the thought. However this was unlikely, for if Hades was really out and about the balloon would have gone up already.

Such a departure from the orderly and rational arrangements about who controlled what, made after Zeus' skin of his teeth victory over the t.i.tans, was truly unimaginable. Both Hep and Thea spoke of this in ways which were far from Alexander's ability to follow anything but his own conjecture. Alexander thought he caught a sense of the inclusion of the mightiness of Zeus himself but could not be sure.

Given the complexity of a situation unfolding on so many levels of unseen activity, it was decided Alexander's actions were to be limited to one major task. It was agreed that Thea would stay on shift with her brother, but would have immediate access to Hep and the others. Total secrecy was necessary, needing subtle use of the 'sphere. Alexander would be well employed to initially follow up the mortal manifestation of the curious interloper. If he could find out what he, she or it was up to they would know more about the state of activity of the opposition and what Alexander was to do next.

Not fully following the details of their multi-faceted communication, it seemed to Alexander that these were early skirmishes in a much larger struggle. The stakes of which held more that the rescue of the earth from delinquency of mortals. It was inconceivably, something even bigger, which his mind was quite unable to grasp, but which was obviously clear enough to Hep and Thea, of central importance to Hera and which began and ended with the supreme Zeus.

Hep left the room, his large frame bent with care. Thea, sat silently pale, suddenly tired, and for the first time in his life Alexander felt vulnerability in her. He suspected his ignorance of the overall situation was a strength, a freedom in innocence which she could never know. It may well lead him into unknown dangers, but he would never feel the weight of knowledge she felt at this moment and he was glad of it. He also knew with certainty that to know what she knew would crush him utterly.

Thea, aware of his thoughts as he was unaware of hers, came to him and they embraced silently. He felt her salt tears on his neck and loved her with all the pride and fierceness of a twin. He felt her struggle to break the embrace and holding him at him out at arm's length resumed her usual deliberate manner but spoke softly.

'Come on, there's no time for this sort of thing.' More softly still, in parenthesis, slipping out unchecked as if from another part of her mind she added, '....as we shared a womb so we will share....the rest.' He saw her eyes were full of pain. 'I will not forsake you however difficult it becomes......and you will at the end....let me....us all....go. Now, to our work. I must go to with Hep, I leave you with Marina though mortal, you can trust her as one of us. She has skills, some of which you have enjoyed, but she has others, and she knows her job. She does not know that she was chosen by Prometheus to guard you and he saw to her training. Like Penny, she has inklings but no knowledge. Tell her of the hacker and be guided by her intuition. Call me on the 'sphere at any time. Good luck Alexi mou.'

She kissed him lightly on the cheek, and left the room with a backward glance which made him want to run and hold her. She was after all his twin and at the bottom of them, they had shared everything.

Alone, through the vibrations of the net round his shoulders, Alexander felt that neither Hep nor Thea were still on the same time-line as himself. He was alone in the house with Marina. To test himself again he sought the door in his mind and found it already open. Beyond the threshold was an impenetrable swirling mist, it was as Thea had said; without a reason to enter there was nothing to link to, his mind saw nothing. He felt he was slowly getting the hang of this 'sphere business.

It seemed to him that its reality was not something outside himself but was conjured up from inside. He thought of those trick films, which start with an individual. Then panning upward take in the town, country and continent, then the whole earth. Then it goes beyond the nearer galaxies to finally stop at the outer rim of the universe: only to fall like a stone back to the individual on earth. Now magnifying the epidermis, the cells, the molecules and on into the single atoms and stopping only at the edge of the vastness which is the atomic inner-universe, comparable in complexity to the external cosmos.

The Chronosphere was different. It was not a physical ent.i.ty. It was fabricated from pure thought. With no equivalent in the external world, it was in its way as large as creation itself. Larger, if that were possible; for it was itself constantly recreating new thoughts at the speed of thought itself. Here was no time, no s.p.a.ce, and amazingly it was available, at least in theory, to any sentient being. It occurred to him, that if his thoughts were able to be launched beyond himself, they would be available for ever to any other being who wanted to link with them. Given that most of them were rubbish, he couldn't believe they would all be available, and was embarra.s.sed to consider they might be accessible to Thea or, the G.o.ds forbid, Lucina.

Suppose there were a kind of filter. A gate of some kind to prevent the 'sphere from getting clogged up with the inconsequential musings (which seemed to occupy large quant.i.ties of his waking life, especially those of s.e.xual reverie) excluding those even longer periods when he was quite unaware he was thinking at all. Perhaps the door image was too simple to work all the time. Maybe the gate he sought was not so literal, it was probably somewhere inside him, that would be consistent with the nature of the 'sphere if he had it rightly.

He would need to search within himself for a more satisfactory entry point. At this the net round his shoulders quivered infinitesimally. Most of the time he ignored Zeus' gift, saw it as a kind of aid, but it seemed now to be more than a simple antenna. It definitely responded to his thoughts. Perhaps it could not only radiate other thoughts and timelines inwards, but it was also a means of broadcasting his own thoughts outwards.

He tried another experiment. He had no idea where his sister now was, but if he was right, she had to be somewhere on the 'sphere. He realised he was concerned at the nature of her departure, feeling an acute sense of abandonment. Also numerous questions for her had risen in his mind. He wanted to understand more, but as usual she had swept him aside to get on with the job in hand. Although he believed this time she was as distressed to leave him as he was to see her go.

Could he at least communicate on L1 wherever she was? If not, how was he to communicate when he was fulfilling his task, how to summons her on her shift watching over him? Was the communication process to be one way only, or could he take the initiative? He realised that up until now she had always appeared to him, not the other way round.

He summonsed the door icon, but all he saw beyond the sill was a vast emptiness, within which he could journey forever. He'd had enough of that for the time being and couldn't be sure Hep would be there to rescue him. He has a sudden idea, he would consult the net. He thought hard - The net gripped his shoulders lightly but firmly. He took it as an affirmative, he went on: 'Thea where are you? I want to talk to you, I want to know more of what you were saying to me just now. Where are you, answer me?

He slipped into L1 mode and through Zeus' net he somehow knew his thought was winging on a correct trajectory. Immediately he entered L1 he melded with Thea. The meld had the same timeless feel as the others he had experienced, but this time without her needing to be present. During the communication Marina came into the room and Alexander was able to acknowledge her without breaking off and found he was even able to say words of greeting without violation of the mind-meld. Part of his brain registered the fact that the communication with Thea was taking place outside time and was also occurring in parallel with Marina in real-time. The thought realm was indeed just that, another world in which within and without ceased to exist. It was no longer a question of either-or, but both.

While he spoke to Marina, the L1 conversation soared into L2. He recognised Thea's delight at the quickness of his learning and his use of the golden net. The answers to his questions about their relationship were less forthcoming. He felt a change in the way they communicated, a rare beauty in the mode of communication as twins experiencing a sharing of sameness and indivisibility. A combination of powers, exclusive of other people. He also sensed a second sense of an otherness within her, which he did not understand. His thoughts attempted to entwine with hers but although she allowed them to enter within the meld he could not engage with her fully. He felt not so much excluded as unready and somehow satisfied with that, he felt her disengage, but softly, lovingly. This was a new sensation and he felt sustained as he had with Nemmi but never until now in the same way, with Thea.

During the meld he was astonished to find he had been holding a quite different conversation with Marina. She was already working on a plan of action concerning the location of the code number of the entry node of the computer which was flicking its electronic tongue around GAIANET. While engaged in the conversation, Alexander surprised himself by the facility his mind was developing to concentrate on different things at the same time. He put this new facility down to the new use and understanding he had about the value of Zeus' net. Not only could he now communicate on the 'sphere at will, but he could engage with real-time in parallel and he was also holding a third conversation with himself about what was going on with Marina.

He realised that his thoughts were probably no more powerful than before, but that he was more aware of how they worked and was gaining control of them. For a start everything about his experiences of Marina was sharply revealed to him. From the moment he saw her when her sheer physicality had sent a flame of desire through his blood; to the utter disbelief in such perfection and the incomparable pleasure he felt when she entered the room.

Now he was placed in her care by Thea, and they were making plans. As part of his brain engaged with the conversation, another part was trying to make sense of the nature of the developing relationship with this strong woman. He wondered if he was taken only with the proficiency in her movements; the way she held her head, the articulation of her limbs. From her body there flowed more than a simple s.e.xual charge. She was somehow too desirable to have, too potent to touch. As much as he wanted to simply grab her and bury himself in her body, feel her thighs and calves twine in his, her firm, pointed b.r.e.a.s.t.s, their long nipples pressed against his chest, her fine tensile fingers grasping him in strong arms. Nevertheless, he felt unable to initiate any movement towards her. She was too much herself. Too completely within herself to be available to the naked l.u.s.t her mere presence arose in him.

She on her part, seemed to be testing him. He felt she was not so nakedly sensual with others. It was as if she let the electricity of her s.e.xual charge flow fully, without rein, in his presence. He had felt the seemingly limitless depth of her healing capacity as she had soothed his aching head. She had been the one in command and used her body to control his desires while also exciting them to fever pitch. Something had to be done to get into some kind of normal relations if the conversation they were having was not to be totally displaced by his ever rising desire. He wondered if a mind-meld were possible as a way of communicating these thoughts. Normal language seemed impossible. He considered simply jumping on her, since there was no way he could verbally communicate the turmoil she caused in him.

He failed to make a mind-meld. As he launched his thoughts towards her mind he could immediately tell that she had no inkling of the 'sphere and there was no connection possible. She was as impenetrable as any other mortal. What did surprise him was his own awareness of thought waves within her, and the notion that with effort he might be able to develop a crude form of thought-link with her, maybe. Having no way of handling this idea he did not even allow the thought to gel enough to make it conscious. He decided the only policy was to take the direct route as his concentration about what she was saying was about to fail him utterly. He would have to speak no matter the outcome. Like a guilty adolescent he spluttered, 'Marina, I'm sorry - but I can't continue with this, he struggled for words and blurted out before he had time to think of the meaning he was conveying. 'You'll have to turn something off, or else I'll explode!'

'Turn something off?' her large black eyes were amused. He was acutely embarra.s.sed.

'I - mean - I can't concentrate on what you are saying, you - I - you - I mean...'

'I what?' she smiled, and then, to his utter surprise she firmly held his head between her hands and kissed him hard at first so he could feel the pressure of her teeth, then more softly.

His knees turned to water His hands clasping her back felt the tension of her dorsal muscles under the thinness of her clothing, his hand slid to grasp a firm, b.u.t.tock as she entwined a powerful leg around his. She reciprocated, slipping her hand into his waistband a strong and knowing finger probing downwards. His already overloaded mind gave up the struggle to hold onto any thoughts as he entered into an explosion of sensuality, matched moment to moment by Marina's well-honed s.e.xual authority.

Hours and hours later, not only had she allowed him to explore all his own fantasies but introduced him to some new ones of which he had not even conceived. They continued until his need for inventiveness waned only through physical and mental exhaustion.

The evening, the night and most of the next day pa.s.sed in a welter of super-heated pa.s.sion, cool, detached, caressing; hard, quick, long slow penetrations, slow, impossibly anguished and multiple o.r.g.a.s.ms of mind and body that stretched all his senses and sent him spinning into s.p.a.ce for ever, where he slept floating as if free from gravity, waking to new sensations of warmth and wetness, of skin on velvet-skin, odours and tastes. .h.i.therto unsensed and untried.

If anyone had asked him what happened in those several hours, he would have replied in awe that he was pulled inside out by a sensual wonderment which spent every desire and drew from him all cravings, leaving him not only sated but reborn as a man complete. If he never had a woman again, it would be enough.

He had no idea what it did for Marina. Though his pleasure, had seemed to be hers too. She gave herself as a consummate teacher gives a bright pupil knowledge, sufficient an act in itself for the benefit of the other. Later, he lay in the bed watching her walk naked into the bathroom. Wet from the shower she came and straddled him in the bed. He was too spent to do anything with only glimmerings of a rigidity that would not turn into anything useful, and sucking the droplets of water from the tips of the cones of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he groaned deeply and then explained with a laugh that although the flesh was weak, the spirit was willing.

'Good,' she laughed jumping off him. 'Now you've got that out of your system...' She kissed his limp p.e.n.i.s, raising it a little and then letting it drop with a flourish. '....Maybe now we can do some different work!' Covering the curve of her b.u.t.tocks in one smooth movement of a silk dressing gown while on the move, she swept from the room and soon the fresh smell of coffee drew him downstairs.

'I love you,' his voice had an unintentional catch. She sat opposite him holding a coffee cup between her two hands. 'You reach places in me I didn't know I even had and you fill up all those aching gaps. I can't even remember what the world was like before you. It's like I was incomplete before, always searching for something that wasn't there. When I first saw you at Markham, I couldn't shake off your image, it was as if your presence had locked onto mine and was welded into me so there was as much of you inside me as outside. It was like a physical thing, a bit like the feeling of twinship I have with Thea, but much more physical.'

He gently unclasped the fingers of her left hand from the coffee cup. 'I have to touch you all the time, feel you there, skin to skin. I can feel desire welling up again.' He laughed, 'At least I can control it now.'

'Listen lover, it's twelve-thirty, that's eighteen hours of my life I've given you. Remember I'm an expert and you need to work with me on important matters and I can't be doing with your p.r.i.c.k forever getting in the way. So, let's get this straight. Let's not get into love. It probably won't work with us. You don't love me, you only think you do. You're suitably grateful for what I can do for you and I like that, not everyone is. That's fine, you're welcome, I liked doing it with you. Don't go getting the wrong impression though, I only do s.e.x like that with people I really like, and I like you. As it happens I also like your mother and your sister, not that I do s.e.x with them. 'she laughed at the idea, ' I owe them, and by now it's a sure fact that they owe me: so we're even. What I do for you I do of my own free will. You owe me nothing that you've not given me already, so less of the love stuff, take it for what it is. It's pleasure, fun, satisfactions of mind and body, I give satisfaction in all things, I do what I want and I do it very well. Anyway, I'm sure you noticed, I did lay it on a bit thick for you, so I'm not surprised if you fell so hard. Anyway I mean to have more of you'

'I think you've made a man of me,' his voice was low, meaning to protest his love, but he let go of her hand, knowing she was right, and he was not in love with her, not quite, not yet. He liked her - liked her a lot - enjoyed her frankness and lack of sentimentality. He, owed her for the last eighteen hours, would always owe her, whatever she said. And he looked forward to more.

'Enough! To work!' she said gaily. 'While you've been getting your testosterone sorted out my spies have been hard at it.'

'Spies! What spies?'

He had spent enough time being surprised about the happenings in the looking-gla.s.s world he was now inhabiting and was now there was even more new knowledge. Part of him knew that this was to be the norm for the foreseeable future. He noted her raised eyebrow at his response, and was glad she let it go. He was tired of expostulating at each new surprise and a.s.sumed correctly she would prefer to treat with him as a man of understanding and involvement as an equal.

'Go on,' he said. 'Sorry'.

She smiled knowingly. 'My spies, have been hard at work. They've been checking on the computer numbers Thea got you to find out about. She's afraid there is a hacker working to get into GAIANET and it's my job at security to find him or her and deal with them. She was very particular that it was you who were to make any contact with the person concerned, I was to get you there and after that I'm to keep a weather eye out for you but you're to go in alone. I won't say I'm not curious why she wants a greenhorn (Alexander winced at the term) to be so up-front in what's my security operation, but you're part of the family and it's their Firm. So as the brother of a director and the son of the MD who am I to say anything?'

She laughed and pulled him to her and kissed him hard on the lips.

'We'll make a real man of you yet...G.o.d, what a future you've got in front of you. I'm going to eat up as much of you as I can while you're still soft enough to be mine. It won't last long, soon you'll not be available to the likes of me but then I'll be able to say I had you and formed you at least a little.' She let go of him, 'Seriously my lad, I'll be with you for as long as necessary, and I'll have my fill of what I can get. You will be glad of me for a while and I'll be happy for that. I don't know why but I want you to be able to say you never wanted or needed any other person, male or female, beyond me. Perhaps there's room for love somewhere, later perhaps. We'll see.'

He thought it best to say nothing and was glad there was a possible future with her. Today it was enough he felt that with her he had no need to try and be anything other than what he was and he could rely on her. For the first time since the encounter with Lucina, for the first time in his life, Lucina or no, he did not have to pretend or disguise anything about himself. He could be weak, strong, confused, childish, foolish, clever - anything he needed or wanted to be with her - and would be accepted and understood. If in return she wanted to eat him alive, he would offer himself to her. He could not imagine ever being without her, let alone leave her behind him, used up by him, she could never be just someone pa.s.sed by in the maelstrom of life to merely be recalled with pleasure or regret.