Shelby and Shauna Kitt and the Dimensional Holes. P. H. C. Marchesi
is taking us there,” said Lendox, sitting down next to her.
“Right now? I don’t feel anything!”
“The roomix is designed that way.”
“Then how do you know you’ve arrived?” she asked, feeling more confused than ever.
“The lights turn yellow if you are going to a public place,” explained Lendox. “If you are paying a visit to someone, however, you must wait until the lights turn pink.”
“Why?”
“Because pink indicates that the person you are visiting has accepted your invitation by touching the roomix,” explained Lendox. “That is when you walk out.”
“Can’t you just walk out anyway?”
“Well, yes,” said Lendox, surprised at her suggestion, “but that would be rude.”
Marina silently laughed at the thought that aliens who could travel across dimensions were actually worried about politeness.
“Since we’re talking about being polite, should I call you vice consul?”
“No,” said Lendox, smiling. “Vice consul is a title I have not held for very long, and which does not truly define who I am. Please, call me by the only name I have, which is Lendox.”
“You don’t have a family name?”
“No. On Miriax, everyone has only a single name.”
“But what if two people have the same name?”
“No newborn is allowed to be given a name that already exists,” explained Lendox, simply. “No two people are the same, so no two people have the same name.”
“It must be impossible for parents to come up with a name that hasn’t been used,” said Marina, shocked.
“Only if they are not creative.”
Marina was about to say that there would be chaos on Earth if every name had to be original, but the lights of the roomix turned yellow and then pink, and Lendox quickly got up.
“They have accepted our invitation,” he said. “Shall we go? The consul is not very patient.”
“How do we get out?” Marina asked, scanning for a door as Lendox reached for her hand. “I don’t see an exit.”
“There is no door yet,” said Lendox. “Once we walk into the wall, the wall becomes the door. We call it fluix technology. Do not let go, or you may be stuck inside the wall.”
Marina tightened her grip on Lendox’s hand, and followed him straight through the wall. Everything around her became distorted again. She saw an emerald blur as she walked, but it disappeared before she could identify what it was.
“We have arrived,” whispered Lendox, coming to a halt. ”You should recover your vision more quickly this time.”
Marina leaned on the vice consul as her eyes struggled to focus. Within a few seconds, she realized that she was in the oval office of the White house. The president stood off to one side, talking to a remarkably tall, older mirian woman with short gray hair styled upwards just like Lendox’s. She wore a black jacket embroidered with gold lines, and which displayed five red and gold buttons. As she talked to the president, three other men wearing military uniforms looked rather tensely in her direction.
“Oh – there she is! Hello, Ms. Gibbs,” the president said, stepping forward to shake her hand. “Glad you could make it so soon. Let me introduce you to Astrax, Consul of Miriax.”
The president gestured politely to the tall woman, who blinked in recognition and bowed her head slightly. Marina warmly stretched out her hand, but Astrax did not take it.
“Apparently, they do not think it is not polite to impose one’s energy field onto another person’s,” the president told Marina. “They consider handshakes to be intrusive.”
“Sorry,” said Marina, awkwardly. “I didn’t know. Seems kind of illogical, though. I mean, you hold someone’s hand to get into their roomix, but you won’t shake their hand?”
“It does seem completely unreasonable,” said Lendox, good-naturedly. “No wonder tourists get so confused on Miriax.”
Astrax, seeing Lendox smile, gave him a disapproving look.
“I believe you have already met my nephew,” she told Marina. “He is, as you know, the vice consul at the Triux.”
“What’s the Triux?” asked Marina, secretly glad that Lendox had none of the harshness of his aunt.
“It is the building where the mirian government is located,” Astrax explained. “It holds the coalition of the three countries of Miriax: Valmorax, Palanix, and Oceanux.”
“I see,” said Marina, wondering if all of the names on Miriax ended in ‘x,’ and concluding that they did.
“Well, now that we’re all here,” said the president, turning to Astrax once more, “I assume that we’re going to find out why you have decided to make contact with us? From what you’ve been telling me, it’s not something that can usually be done.”
“That is correct,” said Astrax, gravely. “Our planet exists in a parallel dimension to yours. We cannot ordinarily come to your dimension, any more than you can come to ours. Energy, as you know, is the only thing that is able to travel between separate dimensions.”
“I didn’t know that, actually,” confessed the president.
“What that means,” continued Astrax, seemingly surprised by the president’s frank admission of ignorance, “is that planets from different dimensions can receive and absorb each other’s energy. Over a very long period of time, some planets have developed so as to rely on certain types of energy. Miriax, for example, relies entirely on the positive energy it absorbs from Earth, and Earth in turn benefits from the energy reflected back. If this delicate balance is disrupted, both planets suffer. That is why we came here.”
“But didn’t you just say that energy is the only thing that can travel between different dimensions?” asked the president, looking thoroughly confused.
“It used to be,” said Astrax, somewhat impatiently. “Unfortunately for both our planets, dimensional holes have opened between Earth and its parallel dimensions. As a result, both Earth and Miriax are in grave danger.”
There was silence in the room. Astrax looked considerably pleased with the attention her words had evoked.
“It seems as if several people here have already died as a result of these dimensional holes,” added Lendox.
“I bet it’s those weird murders!” cried Marina.
All eyes in the room looked at Marina, who reminded herself that she really ought to control her moments of brilliant insight.
“You perceive things quickly,” Astrax said, scanning her with disdain. “Watch closely.”
Marina now noticed that Astrax wore a glove similar to the one Lendox had worn at the observatory. The mirian consul opened her palm, and the same star chart Lendox had used began to occupy the room, much to the outrage of the three men in uniform, who had to move aside for Saturn and Jupiter to settle into their proper places. Marina immediately noticed that, in addition to Miriax, another planet now orbited the Earth. To her surprise, it was larger than Miriax, and its dark and gray surface was smudged with red streaks that looked eerily like bleeding veins.
“Focus your attention on Earth,” said Astrax. “As you can see, both Miriax and Klodius exist within close proximity, though in different dimensions.”
“As Marina correctly guessed,” added Lendox, gesturing to the gray and red planet, “klodians have been paying visits to Earth.”
“So klodians